
Qass. 
Book. 



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i^T'Z'i-^-e/ Z? ,??T-^i^^--<^--^ i^-^^^V 



'^^^^,^^c^-^.^a.y^C3^ 



DAUGHTERS OF AMERICA; 



OR, 



WOMEN OF THE CENTURY, 



PHEBE A. HANAFORD, 

4.UTH0II OF "LIFE OF GEORGE PEABODY," "FROM SHORE TO SHORE, AND 

OTHER POEMS," "LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS,"' "LIFE OF 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN," "THE CAPTIVE BOY," 

"THE YOUNG CAPTAIN," ETC. 



"0 woman, great is thy faith ! ' Jesus Christ 

• A good womau is the loveliest flower that blooms under hearen." 

ThackeraT 

* Ah me ! beyond all power to name, the worthies tried and trut, 
Grave men,/aj> women, youth and maid, pass by in hushed review." 

WHITTIEa 



AUGUSTA, ME.: 
TRUE AND COMPANY. 






Copyright, 
By True & Company. 

Z' '^ '' 7 '" '• 



THE WOMEN OF FUTURE CENTURIES 

OF THE 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

THIS RECORD OF MANY WOMEN OF THE FIRST AND SECOND CENTLHIEE 

WHOSE LIVES WERE FULL OF USEFULNESS, 

AND THEREFORE WORTHY OF RENOWN AND IMITATION. 

5ss noto Ensaiftta 



PREFACE. 



America has been richly blessed in its women, as well as 
its men, of patriotism, intelligence, tisefulness, and moral 
worth. Indeed, it has been a marvel to many in the Old 
World, that the women of the New have been in many 
instances so thoroughly cultured, so admirably developed 
morally and intellectually, amid so much that was new and 
therefore crude in society, and in a freedom which the 
women of European nations have never enjoyed, and of 
which those of Asiatic peoples never dreamed. A cultured 
Christian women of English birth and education, but now 
in a lovely Scottish home, wrote to the writer of this volume, 
that, when visiting America, that which she most enjoyed 
" was the sense of freedom," — a freedom which has been the 
high privilege of the women of our first century, and will 
be yet more the glorious heritage of the women of the second, 
as the ripened fruit is garnered from the promise-blossom. 
"It seemed to me," wrote the lady above mentioned, "that 
by that freedom I was lifted up to a larger and diviner life, 
and a tender and reverent expectation of glorious possibili- 
ties for our race, and especially for women." And this 
record of the noble and useful lives of many Avomen in our 
broad land during the century of American independence, 
will prove, that, though society might be in an imperfect 

5 



state, yet propriety and growth consist ever with a righteous 
freedom, a true liberty, which is under holy law. 

The centennial of American existence cannot properly be 
observed without a reference to its women, as well as to its 
men. Other pens may write eloquently of its patriots, its 
inventors, its warriors, its professional and literary and 
other men in public life, who have left their mark upon the 
century, and won the world's honors and the favor of the 
good and wise ; but the writer of this unpretentious record 
will be abundantly satisfied if she may but so present the 
truth about American women as to prove "before all Israel 
and the sun," that the nation is indebted for its growth 
and prosperity as a people, and for its proud position 
among the nations of the earth, to its women as well as to 
its men. 

The women w^ho have wrought quietly in their homes are 
not forgotten or ignored, while those who are more promi- 
nent are herein approved ; but the record would fill too large 
a volume, were not the number of those mentioned limited. 
Each true life, whether public or private, which any woman 
of the century has lived, goes to make up the character and 
glory of the land and the age ; and every high soul rejoices 
in the welfare of her native land, whether her name be found 
on the scroll of its famous women, or not. 

The author hereby extends her hearty thanks to all those 
who have assisted, in any wise, in the preparation of this book. 
May this record help to impress upon the men and women of 
the future a sense of the obligation which this nation is under, 
and the respect and honor which the Avorld owes, to the women 
of the first American century ! 

P. A. H. 

Jersey City Heights, N. J. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



Having decided to extend the record of noted women, thie 
oew edition is revised and improved, and its new title, " Daugh- 
ters of America," permitted to ccver not only the names of 
women who were prominent in the first century of our Repub- 
lic, but also many others whose biithday may be in the first, 
but whose labors are now making the second century glorious. 
The women of the first and second centuries of our nation's 
life will forever be acknowledged as the shapers of its lofty 
destinies and marvelous triumphs in very many directiong 
The sowers and the reapers shall rejoice together. 

P A. H 
iaasaT Citt, J! J., 1888 



CONTENTS, 



WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 
CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY. 

PAGE 

Woman as the Daughter of the Heavenly Father. — Woman in 
Heathenism. — Women of Israel. — Roman Matrons. — Athe- 
nian Virgins. — Spartan Heroines. — Woman helped by Chris- 
tianity. — Women of Asia, Europe, Africa, America, and the 
Isles of the Sea. — Pocahontas. — The Cacique's Daughter. — 
Widow Storey. — The Pilgrim Mothers. — Phillis Wheatley. — 
Hannah Duston. — ColT)nial Women. — Mercy Warren. — Mary 
Washington 19 

CHAPTER II. 

WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION. 

Declaration of Independence. — How and when made first by a 
Woman, Abigail Adams. — A Philadelphia Woman's Letter. — 
Deborah Franklin. — Elizabeth, Grace, and Rachel Martin. — 
Deborah Samson. — Mother Bailey. — Heroism of Scholiarie 
Women. — Anne Fitzhugh. — Moll Pitcher. — The Country Girl. 
— The Women's League. — Esther Reed. — Lydia Darrah. — 
Groton Women, &c. ........ 45 

CHAPTER III. 

THE WIVES OP THE PRESIDENTS. 

Martha Washington. — Abigail Adams. — Martha Jefferson. — Dolly 
P. Madison. — Mrs. Munroe. — Louisa Catherine Adams. — 
Rachel Jackson. — Hannah Van Buren. — Anna Harrison. — 
Letitia Christian Tyler. — Julia Gardner Tyler. — Sarah Polk. — 
Margaret Taylor. — Abigail Filmore. — Jane Appleton Pierce. 
— Mary Todd Lincoln. — Eliza Johnson. — Julia Grant. — Lucy 
W. Hayes. — Lucretia R. Garfield.— Ella L. Arthur. — Frances 
Folsom Cleveland. — Caroline Scott Harrison . . .65 



10 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

WOMEN LBADBK8 IN BOClltTT. 

Martha Jefferson Randolph. — Mrs. Donelson. — Mrs. Andrew Jack- 
son, jun. — Angelica Van Buren. — Abigail Fillmore. — Harriet 
Lane -7 Martha Patterson. —Mary Stover —Sarah Livingston 
Jay. — Elizabeth Temple Winthrop. — Mercy Warren. — Han- 
nab Wlnthrop, &;c 129 

CHAPTER V. 

PHILAJfTHKOPIO WOHBM. 

Bnsan Huntington. — Margaret Prior. — Mary Ledyanl — Kate 
Moore. — liLa Lewis. — Fatlier Taylor's Widowed Friend. — 
Sarah Hoffman. — Isabella Graham. — Sophia C. Hoffiijaii — 
Lydia Maria Child. — Maria Chapman and other Anti-Slavery 
Womeu. — Charity Uodman. — Dorothea L Dix. — Clara 
Barton, &c 1.51 

CHAPTER VI. 

WOMEN DUHINQ THB CIVIL WAK. 

Womwj of the Sanitary Commission. — Womeu of the Christian 
Commission. — Women Soldiers. — Women Nurses. — Women 
Tea<hera among the Freedmen. —Heroic Womeu, North and 
South 185 

CHAPTER VII 

LITKKAKV WOMKN. 

Hannah Adams. — CatheHne M. Sedgwii;k. — Catherine E. Beecher. 

— Sarah J. Halo. — Margaret Fuller D'Ossoli. -Adeline D. T. 
Wliitney. —Harriet Heecher Stowe. — P'raucies l>auaGago. — 
Julia Ward Howe. — Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. — Louisa M. 
Alcott, &c 214 

CHAPTEK ^^^. 

WOMEN POETS. 

Jalla Ward Howe. —Lydia H. Sigouruey. — Elizabeth Akeni AUeu 

— T..acy I^rcum. — Alice and IMiebe (^arey. — Prances S. O.sgood. 

— raroline A. Mason. — Celia Thaxter, &c 249 

CllAl'TER IX. 

WOMEN-SCIENTISTS. 

Maria Mitchell. — Grac'e Anna Ivewis. —Sarah Hackett Stevenson. 

— Ann Maria Radtield. — Ly<iia F. Fowler. — Elizabeth C. 
Agassiz. --Antoinette Brown Blackwell, and others , . 270 



CONTENTS. 11 



CHAPTER X. 

WOMEN ABTI8T8. 

Harriet Hosmer. — Emma Stebbins. — Eliza Greaiorex. — Lily M 
Spencer. — Margaret Foley. —May Alcott. — Emily Sartain. — 
Mary B. Mellen, and others 291 

CHAPTER XI. 

WOMBN UKCTURKBS. 

Mary A. IJvermore. — Anna E. Dickinson. — Abby Kelley Foster. 

— Elizabeth K. Churchill. — Frances B. W. Harper. — Sojonmer 
Truth. - Mary F. Eastman, &c 325 

CHAPTER Xn. 

WOBfBN RKFOKHBBS. 

Ajiti-Slavery and Temperance Workers. — Elizabeth Oady Stanton. 

— Ln<y Stone. — Lncretia Mutt. — Frances Dana Gage. — Snsaa 

B. Anthony. — Frances E. Willard, and others . . . .351 

CHAPTER XTTT. 

WOMKN rRKAOHKItB. 

(Quaker Preachers. —Mrs. Van Cott and her Methodist Sisters.— 
Antoinette Brown Blackwell. — Olympla Brown. — Phebe A, 
Hanaford. — Ada C. Bowles, &c 435 

CHAPTER XIV. 

WOMK>' MISS ION AROCS. 

Ajin H. Judsou. — Harriet Is'ewell. — Sarah B. Judson. — Henrietta 
Shuck. — Women connected with the various Church Boards of 
Foreign and Home Missions. — Woman's Centenary Associar 
tion. —Mrs. Howe's Peace Mission to England, &c. . . .497 

I CHAPTEIt XV. 

1 WOMBN KDU» ATOK8. 

Catherine E. Kee<her — Mary Lyon. — Elizabeth P. Peabody. — 
Martlia Whiting. — Wages of Women as Teachers. — Women 
on School Committees, and a.s Trustees and Professors of Edu- 
cational Institutions ... 516 

CHAPTER XVI. 

WOMEN PHYSICIANS. 

I 1 Harriot K. Hunt and Sister. — Mercy B. Jackson. —The Influenc* 

', of Marie Zakrzewska and the Black well Sisters. — Clemeuc* 

/ Ijozier. — Mary Putnam .Tacobi. — Susan Dlmock. and others . 651 



1 2 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

WOMXN AS RKADKKN, ACIOES, AJOl srNOKIO. 

Charlotte Cushman. — Maggie Mitchell. — Clara Louise Kellogg - 
Lonise Woo<l worth Fohs. — Anna Cora Mowatt Kit4!hi« — B. 
BmmaOovrell. — Anna Randall Dieiil ... . 5~6 

CHAPTER XVIU. 

WOMEN IN BU8INK88. 

Rebecca Motte. — Susanna Wright. — Emily Ruggles. — Suaan 
King. — Women as Retail Traders. — Sewing- Women. — Women 
In Post-Ofllces. — Women as Telegraphers — Women In light- 
hoQses. — Women Clerks. — The Army of Workers in Homes, 
Stores, an<l Factories . 601 

CHAPTER XIX. 

WOMBN OF FAITH. 

Christian Mothers, Wives, Sisters, and Daughters. —The Praying 
Bands. — The Crusaders. — Lucy Hoyt. — " Mabelle." — Mother 
Taylor. — The Bethesda Home. — Phebe Palmer . . .617 

CHAPTER XX. 

WOMBN INVKNTOR8. 

The Cotton-Qin. — The Sifter. — Women's Industries and Inveu- 
tions. — Invention suggested by Accident ... .641 

CHAPTER XXI. 

WOMEN LAWYERS. 

Phebe W. Cozzens. — Myra Brad well. — Clara H. Nash. — Charlotte 
E. Ray — Helena Barkalow, and others 655 

CHAPTER XX n. 

WOMKN JOURNALISTS 

Caroline A. Soule. — Emma Molloy. — Paulina W. Davis. —Jane 
E. Swisshelm. — Amelia Blumer, and others . ... 681 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

WOMEN PRINTERS. 

rhe Misses Franklin. — Sarah Oo<idard. — Mary Katherine Go«l 
dard. — Penelope Russell. — Augusta A. Miner — Anna E. 
Briggs. — Harriet G. Miller. — The Turner Sisters. - The Bazia 
Sisters, and others ... .707 



OONTKNTR. 18 

rASB 

OHAPTEB XXIV. 

WOUIT LJB&AJUA1T8. 

LoT«Ma Haynea — Elizabeth 0. Todd. — Maria Mitchell. Sarah 
J. Barnard, &o 717 

CHAPTER XXV. 

WOMKN AQRIOtTLTtTBISTB. 

M Louise Thomas. — The Sisters of Dutchess County. — Lacllla 
Tracy. — Miss Morgan. — Mary WUson, &c 720 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

WOMXN HI8TOKIAN8. 

Hannah Adams. — C. Alice Baker. - Martha T. Lamb. — Clarissa 
Butler, and others 730 

CHAPTER XXVn. 

WOMLKM TKA VTILLBSS. 

WTialers' Wives. — Mary D. Wallis. — Luclnda H. Stone, — Jail* 
Ward Howe, &o ... 736 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Phebe a. Hakaford (Steel) 

Hannah Duston Massacre . 

Hannah Duston Monument . 

Martha Washington . 

]\Irs. U. S. Grant 

Mrs. R. B. Hayes 

Mrs. J. Garfield 

Mrs. Frances Folsoji Cleveland 

Mrs. Benjamin Harrison . 

Ida Lewis 

Lucretia Mott . 

Alice Cart .... 

Ph<ehe Cary 

Mrs. .Julia Ward Howe 

Vassar College . 

Observatory Vassar College 

Mrs. Mary A. Livermore . 

Miss Frances E. Willard 

Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer 

Mrs. Dr. McCabe 

Mrs. Eliza J. Thompson . 

Mrs. Mary C. Johnson . 

Mrs. Sarah K. Bolton 

Mrs. Mary T. Burt 

Elizabeth Comstock 

Mrs. Jennie F. Willing 

Mrs. Maggie N. Van Cott 

Lasell Seminary . 

Wellesley College . 

Louise W. Foss 

^Iother Taylor . 

Bethesda Home 

Mother Garfield 

Mrs. Judith Ellen Foster 

Emily Huntington Miller 



page 

fontispiece 

= 35 

39 

67 

95 



103 
111 

119 
157 
171 
221 
235 
251 
2V3 
277 
327 



413 
421 
425 
429 
439 
461 
481 
531 
541 
583 
623 
629 
637 
675 
705 



WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 




WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 



CHAPTER I. 



PRELIMINAHY. 

Woman as the Daughter of the Heavenly Father — Woman in Hea^ 
thenism — Women of Israel — Roman Matrons — Athenian Virgins 
— Spartan Heroines — Woman helped by Christianity — Women of 
Asia, Europe, Africa, America, and the Isles of the Sea — Poca- 
hontas — The Cacique's Daughter — Widow Storey — The Pilgrim 
Mothers — Phillis Wheatly — Hannah Duston — Colonial Women — 
Mercy Warren — Mary Washington. 

" Not she with traitorous lip the Master stung; 
Not she denied liiin witli a liar's tongue : 
She, when apostles fled, had power to brave, — 
Last at the cross, and earliest at the grave." 

Eaton S. Barrett. 

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; 
male and female created he them." — Gen. i. 27. 



EVERY woman is a daughter of Almighty God, as 
every man is his son. Each was created in the 
divine image, and for each the path of duty and des- 
tiny is the same. As the same sky bends over both, so 

19 



20 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

around his sous and his daughters alike the abnighty 
Father places the arm of his protecting love. He has 
given them varied labors, but the same capacities for 
intellectual, social, and moral advancement, each in the 
way belonging to the individual as a unit in the great 
sum of humanity. He has given to neither power over 
the other. Man was not made subject to woman, nor 
should woman be subject to man. Neither men's rights 
nor women's rights should be considered, but human 
rights, — the rights of each, the rights of aU. Men 
and women rise or fall together. History shows that 
no nation can enslave its women, but it insures its own 
barbarism. In proportion as society advances in cul- 
ture, women are freed from an unholy tyranny, and in 
that righteous freedom are able to do much for the 
world's advancement. Every civilized nation owes 
much to its women. And the student of history clearly 
perceives that the advancement of any nation is marked 
by the progress of its women ; and therefore social, 
literary, and professional life in America may be clearly 
exhibited by a fair statement of the characteristics, 
labors, and successes of the women who have become 
in any way notable during the century which limits the 
history of the United States. The new century opens 
with brilliant prospects from the large number of ita 
women still Uving who are active in good works and 
noble reforms, giving fair springtime promise of the 
coming centuries in which a glorious harvest shall be 
garnered, while women and the race advance towards 
high moral, intellectual, and even physical development. 
But before speaking particularly, and at some length, 
concerning the women of the first United States cen- 
tury, a few preliminary statements, illustrated by 
historic facts, may be made with profit. We cannot 



PRELIMENAKY. 21 

forget that woman, the daughter of the ahnighty 
Father, has had for ages to advance with man, hei 
brother, along the path of savagery, and struggle up, 
with him, through the eras of mythology and Judaism, 
to the present era of Christianity. Space forbids an 
extended historic delineation of that progress ; but, as 
we glance along the pathway of the vanished centuries, 
we can see an astounding contrast between the women 
of earlier ages and the women of to-day. 

Woman was, and ever is, in heathenism, abject and 
miserable. As a girl-infant, she is scarcely permitted 
to live ; her maidenhood has no incentives to purity 
«nd wisdom ; and, when she becomes herself a mother, 
she may be seen often casting her own helpless babes 
to the Nile and its crocodiles, or becoming herself a 
sacrifice before the car of some Juggernaut. The 
horrors of heathenism in the Old World, and on the 
islands of the sea, have been graphically told by Chris- 
tian missionaries and others, while ihe pens which have 
told of woman's position amid the Pagans of the New 
World have not been able to trace any brighter lines. 
Everywhere the records show that woman is despised, 
abused, and degraded under the influence of heathen- 
ism, that at least of savage races and barbarous 
tribes. Every step of human progress, from brutal 
savagism to the exalted state of civilization, the result 
of mentai and moral culture, which is enjoyed in Eu- 
rope and America, has been accompanied by the loos- 
ening of the chains of selfishness, and the redemption 
of society from the thraldom in which too often the 
soul is held by the animal propensities ; and thus 
woman has advanced to loftier position and to a happier 
ephere. 

Feminine characteristics are allowed by many writers 



\ 

\ 

\ 
\ 

22 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

aud thinkers on the subject to be of finer natui-e thai? 
those which are purely masculine ; at least the naturally 
kind disposition of the woman heart has been con Tast- 
ed with that of the masculine ; sometimes, and with 
seeming justice, to the disparagement of the latter. 
One writer finds a signal illustration of this in " the 
conduct displayed by woman on the occasion of the 
great tragedy of Calvary. He says, and truly if the 
record is complete and reliable, " Men alone clamored 
for Jesus' life : no woman's voice, thank God, was 
heard in the clamor. A man betrayed him, and for a 
very gross, material consideration. A man condemned 
him to death ; the man's wife, in greater pity, begged 
to have his life spared. Men heartlessly deserted him 
in the hour of hij trial. Of his chosen friends and 
disciples, the men, in a cowardly manner, ran away and 
left him in the hands of his destroyers. Woman fol- 
lowed him, shedding tears of sympathy and pity. 
Woman alone pressed her way thro igh that murderous 
crowd to the very foot of the cross, and there poured 
out her prayers and tears in behalf of the world's 
dying martyr. Woman embalmed his precious body. 
Woman first greeted him when he had burst the bonda 
of death, and triumphed over the grave. Woman was 
first commissioned to go an<1 proclaim the glad tidings 
of his resurrection. And woman to-day stands first and 
foremost in her Master's work, — the truest disciple and 
best representative of his divine Ufe the world affords." • 
This may seem a somewhat extravagant statement tc 
some. It is certainly eulogistic of woman ; but what 
eulogy can surpass the Master's " Well done," which 
men and women may both receive, if alike faithfid to 
the calls of duty and the voice of an enlightened con 

I "Woman and the Divine Republic, by T>>o Millar, p. 33. 



PflBLIMINARY. 23 

science ? The verdict of history will surely be in their 
favor who deserve it, whenever history is written by an 
impartial pen ; and both man and woman can afford to 
wait. 

The apostolic writings give a feminine name and 
character to the Christian Church, — the bride of 
Christ ; and hence the writer above quoted draws 
the conclusion, that, " in proportion as woman is ele- 
vated and promoted, will the divine religion of Jesus 
prevail ; and, in the ratio that that prevails, wUl woman 
be lifted out of her subject state." He believes also, 
th3.t moral elements controlling in society are needed ; 
and that Christian women are to supply those elements, 
partly because Christian, and very largely because 
women. In his laudable enthusiasm, he goes on to pic- 
ture the future of the world when the Christian 
women of coming centiuies shall do fully the work 
God has given woman to do. " I have now no more 
doubt," he says : " I am fully persuaded, that emanci- 
pated, enlightened, and enfranchised, she will be equal 
to the demand. Commissioned by the great Messiah, 
and clothed in the armor of affection, she will go forth 
to conquer the world with the sword of the Spirit. The 
shining hosts of heaven will enlist under her banner of 
love ; and Christ himself will lead the way. The 
whole world will surrender to her divine command, 
and before her triumphant march the powers of dark- 
ness flee. Prison-houses will be transformed into 
schools, aud dram-shops and brothels be turned into 
market-places and homes of purity. Inebriates wil] 
shake off the demon spell that enslaves them, and stand 
erect in their manhood ; and the Magdalen sisters of 
men will look up and smile amid tears of repentance 
and peace. Oppression's yoke will be broken, and the 



24 WOMEN OF THE OBNTUBY. 

clanking chains of the captive be heard in the land no 
more forever. The scaffold, the slave-pen, and the 
whipping-post wUl be remembered only as relics of 
an animal age. Navies will be turned into ships of 
commerce, and the implements of death be beaten into 
the implements of life. ' Nation will not lift up sword 
against nation ; neither will they learn war any more.' " 

But the author thus quoted is not the only writer 
who bears testimony to the great mission of woman, the 
daughter of the Lord Almighty. Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, in 
her admirable book, " Woman's Record," says, " Woman 
is God's appointed agent of morality, the teacher and 
inspirer of those feelings and sentiments which are 
termed the virtues of humanity ; and the progress of 
these virtues, and the permanent improvement of our 
race, depend on the manner in which her mission is 
treated by man." 

As far back in human tradition or history as the 
Garden of Eden, we find that the mother spirit of that 
era had the acknowledgment of her woman's mission 
in the glorious promise that " the seed of the woman 
should bruise the serpent's head." Tracing the path 
of Scripture record, we find the 'vomen of Israel often 
tlie chosen instruments of God to teach and to exhort 
that people. Deborah, the prophetess and judge, 
selected for herself the sweet and tender title of 
" Mother in Israel." Beautiful in character, noble in 
Ufe, " her genius was superior to any recorded in the 
history of the Hebrews, from Moses to David, an inter- 
val of more than four hundred years ; and scriptural 
commentators have remarked that Deborah alone, of 
aU the rulers of Israel, has escaped unreproved by the 
prophets and inspired historians." ^ Of the familiar 
' Mrs. Hale's Woman's R«coni. 



PRELIMINABY. 25 

triumphal ode composed by this remarkable woman of 
Israel, Milman says, " Lyric poetry has nothing in 
any language, wnich can surpass the boldness and 
animation of this striking production. This hymn has 
great historic as well as poetic value." 

Other women of Israel were notable, and exercised 
good and wide influence in their day. We call to mind 
Abigail, the wise wife of the foolish Nabal ; Esther, the 
fair queen of Ahas|ierus ; Huldah, the inspired prophet- 
ess ; Miriam, the prophet-sister of Moses and Aaron ; 
Naomi the model mother-in-law, and Ruth her model 
daughter-in-law ; besides Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Leah, 
Judith, and others whose deeds have given them prom- 
inence on the historic page. To those who would pur- 
sue the study of their lives and influence may be 
commended Grace Aguilar's characteristic book, " Wom- 
en of Israel." 

The women of Pagan Greece and Rome were not 
altogether unworthy of praise. Indeed, the names of 
some who dwelt in classic lands are the synonyms of 
graces and virtues that may well be imitated in a later 
age. The wifely virtues of Lucretia, and the motherly 
excellence of Cornelia, — '•^ mater 0-racchorum" — are 
commended in all lands. 

Greece and Rome had their great orators among their 
men ; but Aspasia,^Cornelia, Hortensia, and others, might 
be mentioned as showing the genius and eloquence of 
their women also. Cicero said of Cornelia, who gave 
public lectures on philosophy in Rome, " Cornelia, had 
she not been a woman, would have deserved the first 
place among philosophers." Aspasia's fame brightens 
with tlie lapse of centuries ; and the asp'ersions of Aris- 
tophanes fail to dim its lustre, when it is remembered 
that she wa'^' the friend of Pericles, and the teacher of 
Socrates. 



26 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Among the Greeks, women as well as men were ad 
mitted to the sacred functions of the priesthood, and 
the priestesses were usually unmarried. These Athen- 
ian virgins were " chosen fi'om the most noble families, 
and carried the distinctive emblems of the deity to 
whose science they were devoted. Those of Minerva 
were clad in the armor of that goddess, with the ceyis^ 
the cuirass, and the helmet ; the priestess of Ceres car- 
ried in her hand a small sheaf of corn." * 

The women of Sparta are always mentioned as hero- 
ines : they were educated with their brothers, and were 
accustomed to hardships, and the greatest virtue they 
cultivated was that of patriotism. 

The soldier of Sparta was exceptionally brave, be- 
cause he had an heroic mother as well as a fearless father. 
A Spartan mother, as history assures us, when reaching 
his shield to a son as he was about to depart for the 
field of deadly strife, said to him, in words that have 
become familiar to all as translated from the language 
of Sparta, " With it or upon it ; " that is, " Return as a 
conqueror or a corpse," for death was preferable to cow- 
ardice. And on another occasion, a Spartan mother 
said to her son, who complained that his bword was too 
short, " Add a step to it ; " in other words, " Be brave 
enough to get so much nearer to the enemy, and let 
courage and skill decide in the contest." 

" After the disastrous battle of Leucreta, in which 
the Spartans had been conquered, in a manner most 
honorable to their own courage and discipline, by the 
superior genius and the novel tactics of Epaminondas, 
many of the vanquished, rather than foolishly waste 
their lives, violated the military rules ; but, when they 
returned to t}teir homes, the women would accept no 

I Cl^ivwland's Antiquln»«« 



PRELIMINARY. 27 

explanations. The wives and mothers of those who 
had died on the field acted as if they were celebrating 
a triumph ; while the others lamented their humiliation, 
and were ashamed to show themselves on the streets. 
A Spartan mother met a messenger from the war, and 
asked him how the battle went. He said, ' I have sad 
news for you ; your son was slain.' — ' Fool,' she replied, 
♦ T want news of the battle.' 

" Such a speech by a mother in any other country 
would be, or would have been regarded as, insincere, or 
as an indication of an exceptional character ; but not in 
Sparta." ' Exceptional as it may seem, the women of 
our land, during our first century, showed a Spartan hero- 
ism often, both during the Revolution and the civil war. 
One mother in the town of Waltham, Mass., received the 
aews of her son's death in battle in 1861, but kept 
oalmly on with her work for other soldiers, not even 
laying down the scissors with which she was at that 
time cutting out shirts for the Sanitary Commission 
ladies around her to sew. 

There may be those who think that culture alona has 
helped woman to her present place of freedom and in- 
fluence. But, while allowing culture to be a mighty 
lever in uplifting humanity, Christianity must be re- 
garded as the greatest force in the elevation of woman 
in every age and nation. The author of " Women of 
Christianity " reminds us that '" the preaching of the 
gospel is an era in the modern world. If we would 
know what it did for woman, we need only compare 
the earliest Christian women with those of the ar oients 
in their purest days. No doubt there were many noble 
women before the word of Christ was known or ac- 
knowledged in Europe, — women of lofty intellect and 

1 Hittell'B History of Culture, p 102. 



28 WOMKN OF THB CENTURY. 

high character, accomplished Greeks and rigid Romans, 
fit to rule with Pericles, or worthy to suffer with Brutus. 
But the difference is clear and striking : there was no 
Dorcas. 

" There could not have been one : the virtues of Dorcag 
weie not those which formed the Pagan ideal ; and, at 
the time when she lived, that ideal was already a thing 
of the past. When the first dawn of Christianity ap- 
peared, the faith of the ancients had been failing them 
for several ages. Epicurism, superstition, and a moral 
depravity too deep to bear record, held sway over the 
subjects of the wide empire ; until suddenly a secret 
murmur, welcome as the glad tidings of liberty to the 
fallen, arose and spread from Jerusalem to Rome. 

" To the capricious tyranny of the emperors, to the 
slavery of thousands of human beings, to the subjec- 
tion of many nations to one nation, Christianity opposed 
the equality of all before God, the spiritual freedom of 
which no bonds can deprive the soul, and the universal 
brotherhood of men. The evils were not removed, but 
the principles by which they were to perish had awak- 
ened. The ' good tidings ' were told to the lowly and 
the great, to the oppressed and the free, in the market- 
place and by the household hearth. There they reached 
woman, — woman, alternately the toy or drudge of man, 
whom only birth, beauty, or genius could raise to 
equalitf ; who, to be something, must be the daughter, 
wife, or mother of an illustrious citizen, and who 
»eemed destined never to know the moral dignity of 
Individual worth. 

*' Christianity at first appeared to change little in the 
condition of woman. It told them in austere precepts 
to obey their husbands, to dwell at home, to mind 
household duties, and to leave the great aims of life 



PBELIMINABY. 29 

to man ; and yet it proved the charter of their liberty. 
We must not ascribe this fact to the widows, virgins, 
and deaconesses of the early Church, important as was 
the part they acted. Had not the Pagan creed its ves- 
tals, priestesses, and prophetic sibyls ? Not there lay 
the diflference. Christianity freed woman, because it 
opened to her the long-closed world of spiritual knowl- 
edge. Sublime and speculative theories, hitherto con- 
fined to the few, became, when once they were quick- 
ened by faith, things for which thousands were eager to 
die. Simple women meditated in their homes on ques- 
tions which had long troubled philosophers in the groves 
of Academia. They knew this well. They felt that 
from her who had sat at the feet of the Master, listen- 
Lug to the divine teaching, down to the poorest slave 
who heard the tidings of spiritual liberty, they had all 
become daughters of a great and immortal faith. Of 
that faith, they were the earliest adherents, disciples, 
and mart3rrs. Women followed Jesus, entertained the 
wandering apostles, worshipped in the catacombs, or 
died in the arena. The Acts of the Apostles bears 
record to the charity of Dorcas, and the hospitality of 
Lydia ; and tradition has preserved the memory of 
Praxedes and Pudentiana, daughters of a Roman sena- 
tor, in whose house the earliest Christian meetings were 
held at Rome. The wealth of the two virgins went to 
relieve the church and the poor. United in their lives 
and in their charity, they were not divided in death : 
they were buried side by side on the Salarian Road. 
The Church of St. Pudentiana, erected on the spot 
where the palace of their father once stood, is held to 
be the most ancient in existence. 

*' Many of those early Christian women won the crown 
of martyrdom. They were now beings with immortal 



30 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

8oals : they suffered as such both worthily and willingly. 
The Elysium of the ancients was the home of heroes : 
the heaven of the Christian was opened to the meanest 
slave. The new faith showed no favor of sex in its 
rewards ; and the old, as if knowing this, made no ex- 
ception in its cruelty. From the days when Nero raised 
the first general persecution against the Church, and lit 
up the evenmg sky of Rome with the fires in which 
Christians were slowly consumed, women shared all the 
torments and heroism of the martyrs. ... It showed 
very forcibly the spirit of the new religion, that to 
women was chiefly intrusted the practice of its purity 
and charity, in their severest and most extensive 
meaning." ^ 

Wherever the principles of true Christianity prevail, 
in any country, either with tribes or individuals, there 
is seen the progress of culture, civilization, and the con- 
dition of woman. Contrast tlie women of the various 
parts of the world to-day, and the condition of those in 
Asia, — toys or serfs as they are, in Africa the same, — 
with those in Euro])e and America, who are taught in 
the principles of the gospel, and live under some flag 
which protects their dearest interests. Asia has some 
bright spots ; but the very mention of Hindostan, China, 
Japan, and the islands of the Indian Ocean, brings to 
mind the need of Christian teachers, and the self-deny- 
ing labors of gospel missionaries, showing at once the 
want of something to elevate both man and woman. 
Africa has only here and there a spot where the light 
of the truth has made glad human hearts ; and many 
a Christian teacher is needed to follow in the footstep? 
of Mungo Park and Livingstone, of Stanley and Bayard 
Taylor, before the land of the Nile will show a place of 
culture and advancement for woman. 

' "Women of Christianity, hy Julia KavanagL 



PRELIMINARY. 31 

Europe, with its marvellous historic and classic treas- 
ures, has done as much for woman as the form of 
Christianity which prevails over by far the larger por- 
ticei will permit. 

It is reserved for America to show to the world the 
rarest excellence of woman in the exercise of the largest 
and truest liberty the world has ever known. The well- 
remembered speech of Counsellor Phillips, so familiar 
in our school-days as a model of oratory, given us by 
John Pierpont, preacher and poet, in the " National 
Reader," arises to the mind ; and involuntarily one ex- 
claims, " Happy, proud America I The lightnings of 
heaven yielded to your philosophy. The temptations 
of earth could not seduce your patriotism." And if the 
speaker has noticed the condition of woman in America, 
compared with her condition in any other portion of the 
world, there must be added, " Happy, proud America ! 
for in thee woman is duly exalted, and will ultimately 
take her place completely, side by side with her brother 
man, the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, 
to bring the world to knowledge and holiness, to wis- 
dom and love." Does this seem arrogant ? Yet it is 
in harmony with the facts of history. Other nations 
have done well, in proportion to their gospel light ; but 
"thou excellest them all." Oh, happy, proud America, 
whose centennial year is a year of thanksgiving and joy 1 

" The United States of North America," says Mrs. 
Hale, " is the land of modern chivalry, where the moral 
qualities of woman are most highly valued, and hei 
station in society as ' the glory of the man ' most fully 
acknowledged. The remarkable effect this has had on 
the destiny of the nation was comprehended by M. de 
Tocqueville, who observed the result, though he did 
not analyze the process. At the close of his work on 



82 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

America, he remarks that, if he were required to point 
out the cause of the wonderful advance in prosperity 
and civilization of the American people, he should reply 
' It was the superior character of their women.' " ' 

There have been American heroines who were not 
properly the women of the United States, whose names 
have been honored, and whose deeds were worthy of 
that honor. If Roman matrons are mentioned, Indian 
women should not be forgotten ; for the aborigines of 
America had something to do with the early history of a 
people that has superseded them, besides greeting them 
with the tomahawk or the pipe of peace. One Indian 
woman is held in honor, — Pocahontas, the daughter of 
Powhatan, the Indian chief in Virginia; born about 
1594, and dying in England in 1617, when only about 
twenty-three years of age. This young, heroic child of 
a chieftain, in saving the life of Capt. John Smith, 
when, as he was about to be slain by her father's club, 
she sprang before him, and shielded him with her own 
body, earned for herself an honorable mention in 
American history. She married a brave English officer 
named Rolfe ; and the celebrated John Randolph was 
one of her descendants. Very beautifully has Mrs. 
Hale remarked concerning her, " Pocahontas has been 
the heroine of fiction and of song ; but the simple 
truth of her story is more interesting than any ideal 
description. She is a proof of the intuitive moral 
sense of woman, and the importance of her aid in 
carrydng forward the progress of human improve- 
ment. 

" Pocahontas was the first heathen who became con- 
verted to Christianity by the English settlers. The reli- 
gion of the gospel seemed congenial to her nature : she 

* Woman's Record, note to General Preface. 



PRELIMLNARr. 33 

W&9 like a guardian angel to the white strangers who 
had come to the land of the red men. By her the races 
were united, thus proving the unity of the human 
family through the spiritual nature of the woman, ever, 
in its highest development, seeking the good, and at 
enmity with the evil ; the preserver, the inspirer, the 
exemplar, of the noblest virtues of humanity." ^ 

The author of " The Conquest of Florida " gives a 
graphic story of four Spaniards who fell into the hands 
of the Indians, three of whom were shot ; and the 
fourth, named Ortis, was only saved by the cacique's 
noble daughter, who assisted him to escape. The history 
of the settlement of our country reveals many such noble 
instances of humanity in women, though the women 
who revealed this lovely trait were but illiterate In- 
dians. Space forbids further reference to any of them 
at this time, and leaves but little opportunity for men- 
tioning any of the early heroines of Colonial days. 

Some of those pioneer women, like the Widow Storey, 
deserve much as well as honorable mention. Her hus- 
band being killed by the fall of a tree, she went from 
Connecticut to Salisbury, Vt., with her ten children, to 
take his place, and preserve and clear up his farm. 
" And this bold resolution she carried out to the letter, 
in spite of every difficulty, hardship, and danger which 
for years constantly beset her in her solitary location in 
the woods. Acre after acre of the dense and dark for- 
est melted away before her axe, which she handled with 
the dexterity of the most experienced chopper. The 
logs and bushes were piled and burnt by her own strong 
and untiring hand: crops were raised, by which, with 
the fruits of her fishing and unerring rifle, she supported 
herself and her hardy brood of children. As a place of 

1 Woman's Record, p. 476. 



34 WOMEN O" THE CENTCTRY. 

refuge from the assaults of Indians or dangerous wild 
beasts, she dug out an underground room, into which, 
through a small entrance made to open under an over- 
hanging thicket in the bank of tlie stream, she nightly 
retreated with her children. And here she continued 
to reside, thus living and thus laboring unassisted, till 
by her own hand and the help which her boys soon 
began to afford her, she cleared up a valuable farm, and 
placed herself in independent circumstances in life." ' 

The readers of Colonial history well remember the 
names of many women who were prominent in the 
higher walks of life. First of all the Pilgrim Mothers 
will be remembered. " There is a beautiful tradition, 
that the first foot which pressed the, snow-clad rock of 
Plymouth was that of May Chilton, a fair young maid- 
en ; and that the last survivor of those heroic pioneers 
was May Allerton, who lived to see the planting of 
twelve out of the thirteen Colonies which formed the 
nucleus of the United States. In 'The Mayflower,' 
eighteen wives accompanied their husbands to a waste 
land and uninhabited, save by the wily and vengeful 
savage. On the un floored hut, she who had been nur- 
tured amid the rich carpets and curtains of the mother- 
la^id rocked her new-born babe, and complained not. 
She who in the home of her youth had arranged the 
gorgeous shades of embroidery, or ]>erchance had com- 
pounded the rich venison pasty as her share in the 
housekeeping, now pounded the coarse Indian corn for 
her children's bread, and bade them ask God's blessing 
ere they took their scanty portions. When the snows 
sifted through their miserable roof-trees upon her little 
ones, she gathered them closer to her bosom ; she taught 
them the Bible and the catechism, and the holy hymn, 

1 Noblt» I>««<l8 of American Women, by I Clement, p ^3. 




HANNAH DUSTON MASSACRE 



PRELIMLNARY 37 

though the war-whoop of the Indian rang through the 
wild. Amid the untold hardships of Colonial life, she 
infused new strength into her husband by her firmness, 
and solaced his weary hours by her love." ^ 

The names of the Pilgrim Mothers are many of them 
kept in memory by the custom of naming children in 
like manner; and their virtues have descended with 
their names. The hst is too long to place here, but it 
would blaze with the glory of their spotless fame. 
While the nation honors the Pilgrim Fathers, let it not 
fail to give due reverence to the memory of the Pilgrim 
Mothers. 

Only four more women who dwelt in our land pre- 
vious to the first United States century will be men- 
tioned here. First, Phillis Wheatley, who was brought 
from Africa to Boston, Mass., in 1761, when but six. 
years old, and who wrote a volume of poems which 
was published in London in 1773, while she was in 
that city with the son of her owner, — for she was a 
slave. She was educated through the favor of her 
mistress, and was quite a proficient in the Latin lan- 
guage. A poem which she sent to Gen. Washing- 
ton gave her enduring fame. Her life bore evidence 
that the Colonial women, though some of them slave- 
holders, were not destitute of a lively interest in those 
the custom of the times placed whoUy in their charge. 
Phillis herself is a proof that even African women, 
despised as they have been, have intellectual endow- 
ments, and, with culture and Christian attainment, may 
rival their fairer sisters in the expression of high 
thoughts in poetic phrase. 

The second woman to be mentioned here is Hannah 

1 Mrs. Lytlia H. Sigoumey, in her IntrtKlaction to Noble Deeds of 
American Women. 



38 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Duston, to whom a suitable monument has been erected 
on Contoocook Island, in the city of Concord, N.H, 
She was one of those brave, heroic. Spartan-like women 
of Colonial times, who preferred to kill her captors to 
dwelling in Indian slavery. 

When the Indians captured Mrs. Duston, her nurse 
Mrs. Mary Neff, and babe only a week old, one might 
have been pardoned for predicting death to the mother 
of so young a child, marched into the wilderness for 
several days, her soul agonized with the thought of 
leaving her husband and seven children far behind 
her with scarce any hope of seeing them again ; but 
the mother's heart was brave and determined. " At 
night," says Bancroft the historian, " while the house- 
hold slumbers, tlie captives each with a tomahawk 
strike vigorously and fleetly, and with a division of 
labor ; and, of the twelve sleepers, ten He dead. Of one 
squaw the wound was not mortal ; one child was 
spared from design. The love of glory next asserted 
its power ; and the gun and tomahawk of the mur- 
derer of her infant, and a bag heaped full of scalps, 
were choicely kept as trophies of the heroine. The 
streams are the guides which God has set for the 
stranger in the wilderness : in a bark canoe, the three 
descend the Merrimac to the English settlements, 
astonishing their friends by their escape, and filling the 
land with wonder at their successful daring." 

Mercy Warren is next mentioned as one of the first 
American women poets, and as a historian who holds 
high place among the American writers of her day. 
She was the daughter of Col. James Otis, was born in 
1728, and married James Warren, a merchant of Plym- 
outh. She died in 1814, at the age of eighty-seven. 
Her writings were published in 1805, under the title 





HANNAH DUSTON MONUMENT, 

Erected on Contoocook Island, through the Efforts of Col. Roberi 
B. Caverly, Poet and Historian, 



PRELIMINARY 41 

of " The History of the Rise, Progiess, and Termina- 
tion of the American Revolution, interspersed with 
Biographical, Political, and Moral Observations," in 
three volumes. Though born previous to the first 
United States century, she was in the prime of life 
when the Revolution occurred ; and of course the rest 
of her career and her fame as an historical writer belong 
to the first century of American independence. Simi- 
lar statements might be made concerning many other 
women who were born too soon to be numbered with 
the women of the first century, but not too early or too 
late to take some part in its heroic deeds, or to have 
great and good influence on the times which followed 
them. The spirit of such women may be discerned 
from the only stanza taken from Mrs. Warren's poem, 
" The Lady of Castile," which will here be given : — 

"THE COURAGE OF VIRTUE. 

" A soul inspired by freedom's genial warmth 
Expands, grows firm, and by resistance stroiij^ : 
The meet successful prince that offers life, 
And bids me live upon ignoble terms. 
Shall learn from me that virtue seldom fears. 
Death kindly opes a thousand friendly gates, 
And Freedom waits to guard her votaries through." 

" Last, but not least," is penned the name of Mary 
Washington, the mother of " the Father of his Coun- 
try." Is she not, then, the grandmother of our fair Re- 
public ? Surely she claims distinction among the women 
of America. Industrious, economical, charitable, pious, 
she trained her son in a noble simplicity, and was best 
pleased when she saw him good^ rather than when she 
saw him great. Her home was on the banks of the 
Potomac, since more widely historic ; and her history 



42 W^OMAN OF THE CENTURY. 

is 80 woven with that of her son, that to know of 
George Washington is to know also of his mother. 
Since both son and mother were prominent in the first 
portion of our country's first century, a few paragraphs 
may be here devoted to one so worthy both in charac- 
ter and social position. George W. P. Custis gives a 
vivid portraiture of noble qualities in this justly 
revered woman. Thus he describes her grand simplicity 
of manners : " After an absence of nearly seven years, 
it was at length, on the return of the combined armies 
from Yorktown, permitted to the mother again to see 
and embrace her illustrious son. So soon as he had 
dismounted, in the midst of a numerous and brilliant 
suite, he sent to apprise her of his arrival, and to know 
when it would be her pleasure to receive him. And 
now mark the force of early education and habits, and 
the superiority of the Spartan over the Persian school, 
in this interview of the great Washington with his 
admirable parent and instructor. No pageantry of war 
proclaimed his coming, no trumpets sounded, no ban- 
ners waved. Alone and on foot, the marshal of 
France, the general-in-chief of the combined armies of 
France and America, the deliverer of his country, the 
hero of the age, repaired to pay his humble duty to her 
whom he venerated as the author of his being, the 
founder of his fortune and his fame. For full well he 
knew that the matron would not be moved by all the 
pride that glory ever gave, nor by all the ' pomp and 
circumstance ' of power. 

" The lady was alone, her aged hands employed in the 
works of domestic industry, when the good news was 
announced ; and it was further told that the victor 
chief was in waiting at the threshold. She welcomed 
him with a warm embrace, and by the well-remembered 



PRELIMINARY. 43 

and endearing name of his childhood, inquiring as to 
his health ; she remarked the Hues which mighty cares 
and many trials had made on his manly countenance, 
spoke much of old times and old friends, but of his 
glory — not one word ! 

" Meantime in the village of Fredericksburg all was 
joy and revelry. The town was crowded with the offi- 
cers of the French and American armies, and with 
gentlemen from all the country around, who hastened 
to welcome the conquerors of Cornwallis. The citizens 
made arrangements for a splendid ball, to which the 
mother of Washington was specially invited. She ob- 
served, that, although her dancing days were pretty well 
over^ she should feel happy in contributing to the gene- 
ral festivity, and consented to attend. 

'* The foreign officers were anxious to see the mother 
of their chief. They had heard indistinct rumors re- 
specting her remarkable Ufe and character ; but, form- 
ing their judgments from European examples, they 
were prepared to expect in the mother that glare and 
show which would have been attached to the parents 
of the great in the Old World. How were they sur- 
prised when the matron, leaning on the arm of her son, 
entered the room I She was arrayed in the very plain 
yet becoming garb worn by the Virginia lady of the 
olden time. Her address, always dignified and impos- 
ing, was courteous though reserved. She received the 
uomphmentary attentions which were profusely paid 
her, without evincing the slightest elevation ; and at an 
early hour, wishing the company inuch enjoyment of 
their pleasures, observing that it was time for old 
people to be at home, retired. 

" The foreign officers were amazed to behold one 
whom so many causeG contributed to elevate, preserving 



44 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

the even tenor of her life, while sueh a blaze of glory 
shone upon her name and offspring. The European 
world furnished no examples of such magnanimity. 
Names of ancient lore were heard to escape from their 
lips ; and they observed that,' if such were the matrons 
of America, it was not wonderful the sons were illus- 
trious " 

Mary Washington died at the age of eighty-»even, 
soon after the death of her illustrious son. Mrs. Hale 
states that " On the 7th of May, 1833, at Fredericks- 
burg, the corner-stone of her monument was laid by 
Andrew Jackson, then the president of the United 
States." He closed his remarks with these words: 
" Fellow-citizens, at your request, and in your name, 
I now deposit this plate in the spot destined for it ; and 
when the American pilgrim shall, in after ages, come 
up to this high and holy place, and lay his hand upon 
this sacred column, may he recall the virtues of her 
who sleeps beneath, and depart with his affections 
purified, and his piety strengthened, while he invokes 
blessings upon the mother of Washington I " This 
monument bears the simple but touching inscription, 
" Mary, the mother of Washington." 

These preliminary statements, though far more brief 
and imperfect than the women of worth who lived pre- 
vious to the first United States century deserved, have, 
it is hoped, opened the way very properly for the men- 
tion of noble, useful, excellent, and famous Women of 
the Century. 




CHAPTER II. 

WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION". 

Declaration of Independence — How and when made first by a 
Woman, Abigail Adams — A Philadelphia Woman's Letter — 
Deborah Franklin — Elizabeth, Grace, and Rachel Martin — Deb- 
orah Samson — Mother Bailey — Heroism of Schoharie Women — 
Anne Fitzhugh — Moll Pitcher — The Country tJirl — The Women's 
League — Esther Reed — Lvdia Darrah — Groton Women, &c. 



Kead the fresh annals of our land : the gathering dust of time 
Nor yet has fallen on the scroll to dim the tale sublime ; 
There woman's glory proudly shines, for willingly she gave 
Her costliest offerings to uphold the generous and the brave 
Who fought her country's battles well ; and oft she perilled life 
To save a father, brother, friend, in those dark years of strife. 
Whatever strong-armed man hath wrought, whatever he hath won, 
That goal hath woman also reached, that action hath she done." 

Mary M. Chase. 



' The Lord shall sell Sisera into the liands of a woman." — Judg. iv. 9. 



THE days of Colonial dependence in America were 
numbered, and came to an end. The British gov- 
ernmental officials were weighed in the balances of 
justice and humanity, and found wanting. " Taxation 



46 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

without representation " then as now was regarded as 
iniquitous, and to be frowned upon and disallowed. 
Finally there came an appeal to arms in defence of a 
righteous freedom. The bell of liberty rang out upon 
the air of the New World, and the first century of 
American freedom began. It should never be forgotten 
by the children of Revolutionary sires, that there were 
foremothers, as well as forefathers, who should be hon- 
ored. There were noble women as well as brave men 
of the Revolution, who should receive due recognition 
from posterity, and a generous meed of praise. 

It should be well remembered, that when the abso- 
lute authority of an unjust parliament and a tyrannical 
king was asserted and re-asserted, to the annoyance 
and oppression of the people in America, in response 
to the proclamation for suppressing rebelHon and sedi- 
tion, as the remonstrances of our forefathers were 
termed, a woman — Abigail Adams — in Massachu- 
setts, wrote thus in a letter to her husband, John 
Adams, at Philadelphia : — 

" This intelligence will make a plain path for you, 
though a dangerous one. I could not join to-day in 
the petitions of our worthy pastor for a reconciliation 
between our no longer parent state, but tyrant state, 
and these Colonies. Let us separate ; they are un- 
worthy to be our brethren. Let us renounce them ; 
and instead of supplications, as formerly, for their 
prosperity and happiness, let us beseech the Almighty 
to blast their counsels, and to bring to nought all theii 
devices." 

Said " The New York Tribune " in July, 1875, com- 
menting on the above, " Here was a declaration of 
independence, preceding by seven months that which 
has become so famous ; and it was signed by a woman." 



WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION. 47 

There is ample evidence of the sympathy which the 
women of those early days of our nation's history felt 
with the efforts of their countrymen to rid themselves 
of a foreign yoke. One woman, addressing a British 
oflBcer in Boston, wrote from Philadelphia as follows : 
" I have retrenched every superfluous expense in my 
table and family. Tea I have not drunk since last 
Christmas, nor bought a new cap or gown since your 
defeat at Lexington ; and, what I never did before, have 
learned to knit, and am now making stockings of wool 
for my servants ; and this way do I throw in my mite 
to the public good. I know this, that as free I can die 
but once ; but as a slave I shall not be worthy of life. 
I have the pleasure to assure you that these are the 
sentiments of all my sister Americans. They have 
sacrificed assemblies, parties of pleasure, tea-drinking, 
and finery, to that great spirit of patriotism that actu- 
ates all degrees of people throughout this extensive 
continent." 

An address, expressive of the sentiments of the 
women of the new nation towards their brave defenders, 
was widely circulated in the land, and read in the 
churches of Virginia. " We know," it said, " that at 
a distance from the theatre of war, if we enjoy any 
tranquilhty, it is the fruit of your watchings, your 
labors, your dangers. And shall we hesitate to evince 
to you our gratitude ? Shall we hesitate to wear cloth- 
ing more simple, and dress less elegant, while, at the 
price of thia small privation, we shall deserve your 
benedictions ? " 

Mrs. E. F. Ellet, in her three volumes of great value, 
detailing the high sentiments and heroic deeds of the 
women of the Revolution, declares that " the noble 
ieeds in which this irrepressible spirit breathed itself 



48 WOMEN OF THE CEKTURY. 

were not unrewarded by persecution. The catie of the 
Quakeress Deborah Franklin, who was banished 
from New York by the British commandant for her 
liberality in relieving the sufferings of the American 
prisoners, was one among many. In our days of tran- 
quillity and luxury, imagination can scarcely compass 
the extent or severity of the trials endured ; and it 
is proportionately difficult to estimute the magnanimity 
that bore all, not only with uncomplaining patience, 
but with a cheerful forgetfulness of suffering in view 
of the desired object. The alarms of war, the roar of 
the strife itself, could not silence the voice of woman 
Hfted in encouragement or prayer. The horrors of 
battle or massacre could not drive her from the post 
of duty. The effect of this devotion cannot be ques- 
tioned, though it may not now be traced in particular 
instances. These were, for the most part, known only 
to those who were themselves actors in the scenes, or 
who lived in the midst of them. The heroism of the 
Revolutionary women has passed from rememltrance 
with the generation who witnessed it, or is seen only 
by faint and occasional glimpses through the gathering 
obscurity of tradition." ^ 

But some knowledge of these noble women of the 
century is given us by Mrs. Ellet, and also in a smaller 
work called " Noble Deeds of American Women," by 
Jesse Clement. 

Three women bearing the name of Martin deserve 
to be remembered. The elder, Elizabeth Marten, 
bore the same relation to the two younger, Grace and 
Rachel, that Naomi did to Ruth and Orpah. Her sons 
were in the Revolutionary ranks, — seven of them, — to 
whom she said as they went, with the spirit of Sparta, 

1 Women of the Revnlntion, vol. i- p. 31. 



WOMEN OF TBLK REVOLUTION. 49 

'^ Go, boys, and fight for your country. Fight till 
death, if you must ; but never let your countr}' be dis 
honored. Were I a man I would go with you." 

When a British officer, learning that she had seven 
sons in the army, sneeringly said she had enough, she 
replied that she wished she had fifty there. 

When another British officer heartlessly told her he 
saw her son's brains blown out on the field of battle, 
she calmly replied, " He could not have died in a 
nobler cause." 

" When Charleston was besieged, she had three sons 
in the place. She heard the report of cannon on the 
occasion, though nearly a hundred miles west of the 
besieged city. The wives of the sons were with her, 
and manifested great imeasiness while listening to the 
reports ; nor could the mother control her feelings any 
better. While they were indulging in silent and, as 
we may suppose, painful reflections, the mother sud- 
denly broke the silence by exclaiming, as she raised 
her hands, ' Thank God 1 they are the children of the 
Republic ! ' " ' 

That there was courage in Rachel and Grace 
Martin, was evinced in their capture of important 
despatches, when, disguised as two rebels, they as- 
sailed the British courier and his guard, took the 
papers, which they speedily forwarded to Gen. Greene, 
and released the messenger and the two officers who 
were his guard on parole, while they had not the least 
suspicion that their captors were women. Boadicea, 
rushing in her rude chariot over the battle-field, wliilo 
her long and yellow hair was streaming in the wind, 
had not more warlike heroism than those two sisters 
who risked so much to aid their country's defenders. 

1 Noble Deeds of American Women, p. 179 



60 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Deborah Samson of Plymouth, Mass., disguised 
herself, and, as a man named Robert Shirtliffe, served 
during the whole of the Revolutionary war, with the 
same zeal and efficiency, and with the exposure to 
hardship and fatigue, endured by the other soldiers. 
She was wounded twice ; but her secret remained un- 
discovered, till, during brain-fever, her sex was discov- 
ered by the physician, who then chivalrously took her 
to his own home. " When her health was restored, 
her commanding officer, to whom the physician had 
revealed his discovery, ordered her to carry a letter to 
Gen. Washington. Certain now of a fact of which 
she had before been doubtful, that her sex was known, 
she went with much reluctance to fulfil the order. 
Washington, after reading the message with great con 
sideration, without speaking a word, gave her her dis- 
charge, together with a note containing a few words 
of advice, and some money. She afterwards married 
Benjamin Gannett of Sharon, Mass. She received a 
pension, with a grant of land, for her services as a 
Revolutionary soldier." ^ Honorable mention of this 
woman-soldier is made in Niles' " Principles and Acts 
of the Revolution." 

Anna Warner, the wife of Capt. EKjah Bailey of 
the Revolutionary army, earned the title of "The 
Heroine of Groton," by her devotion to the cause of 
freedom, and her fearless efforts to aid the wounded on 
the occasion of the terrible massacre at Fort Griswold 
Id Connecticut. When the blockading fleet in 1813 
appeared off the harbor of New London, Conn., she was 
among the patriotic women who sacrificed articles of 
clothing to supply flannel for cartridges. The editor 
of " The Democratic Review " visited her in 1846, 

1 Mrs. flale'a Biography of Dlstingnisbed Women, p. 497- 



WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION. 51 

when she was eighty-eight years old, and as agile as a 
girl of eighteen. He said of her, ' Such is Mothel 
Bailey. Had she lived in the palmj days of ancient 
Roman glory, no matron of the mighty empire would 
have been more highly honored." But she was only a 
type of many. Patriotic women abounded in the days 
of the Revolution, and their patriotism hves in their 
descendants. The historian of Schoharie has em- 
balmed upon his pages the records of their heroic 
deeds. Anticipating the needs of the rangers, Mbs. 
Angelica Vrooman caught a bullet-mould, some lead, 
and an iron spoon, ran to her father's tent, and there 
moulded a quantity of bullets amid the noise of the 
battle. " While the firing was kept up at the middle 
fort, great anxiety prevailed at the upper ; and, during 
this time,' Capt. Hager, who commanded the latter, 
gave orders that the women and children should retire 
to a long cellar, which he specified, should the enemy 
attack him. A young lady named Mart Hagidorn, 
on hearing these orders, went to Capt. Hager, and said, 
' Captain, I shall not go into that cellar, should the 
enemy come. I will take a spear which I can use as 
well as any waw, and help defend the fort.' The cap- 
tain, seeing her determination, answered, ' Then take 
a spear, Mary, and be ready at the pickets to repel an 
attack.' She cheerfully obeyed, and held the spear at 
the picket, till hurrahs for the American flag burst op 
her ear, and told that all was safe." ' 

Patriotism was not limited to any one section of our 
country. The North and the South were alike unwill- 
ing to submit to British aggression. The wife of Col. 
Fitzhugh of Maryland collected her slaves, and, in the 
absence of her husband, prepared to defend their home. 

1 Vide Noble I>e«d8 of American Women. 



52 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

wheD they were visited by British soldiers. The iii' 
vaders fled in dismay. Anne Fitzhuqh was one who 
could respond to the exclamation in Proverbs, " Who 
shall find a valiant woman ? The price of her is as 
things brought from afar." Accompanying her blind 
husband, whom the saucy Britishers determined to take 
as prisoner to New York, she left her home half-clad, 
but firm in her purpose not to leave her helpless charge. 
She had previously placed pistols in the hands of her 
sons, and sent them forth from the other side of the 
house to a place of safety. " It was a cold and rainy 
night ; and with the mere protection of a cloak, which 
the officer took down and threw over her shoulders 
before leaving the house, she sallied forth with the 
party. While on the way to the boat, the report of a 
gun was heard, which the soldiers supposed was the 
signal of a rebel gathering. They hastened to the 
boat, where a paxole was written out with trembling 
hands, and placed in the old gentleman's possession. 
Without even a benediction, he was left on shore with 
his faithful and fearless companion, who thought but 
little of her wet feet as she stood and saw the cowardly 
detachment of British soldiers push off and row away 
with all their might for safety." * 

The women of Revolutionary days afforded the poet 
ample opportunity to praise their devotion and heroism, 
ind say, as one did,* — 

" Proud were they by such to stand, 

111 hamiuock, fort, or glen; 
To load the sure old rifle, 

To run the leaden ball, 
To watch a battling husband's place, 

And fill it, should he fall," 

1 Moble Deeds. &c., p 2B9. « W. D. Gallaghar 



WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION. 53 

This was illustrated in the noble act of a woman 
whose husband, a gunner named Pitcher, was killed 
during the battle of Monmouth ; and she then stepped 
forward, ind took his place. " The gun was so well 
managed as to draw the attention of Gen. Washington 
to the <;ircumstance, and to call forth an expression of 
his admiration of her bravery and her fiilelity to her 
country. To show his appreciation of her virtues and 
her highly valuable services, he conferred on her a 
lieutenant's commission." She was afterwards known 
as Captain or Major Molly. 

An incident is related, which occurred while Wash- 
ington was at Valley Forge with his army, and the 
enemy was in Philadelphia, which proved that a coun- 
try girl had fidelity and courage. Major Talmage, 
hearing that such a girl had gone to Philadelphia, 
ostensibly to sell eggs, but really to obtain information 
concerning the enemy, moved his detachment to Ger- 
mantown, and waited with a small party at a tavern in 
sight of the British outposts. He soon saw the coun- 
try girl, and was about to be told by her of British 
plans, when he was informed that their Hght horse was 
advancing. " Stepping to the door, he saw them in full 
pursuit of his patrols. He hastily mounted ; but, be- 
fore he had started his charger, the girl was at his side 
begging for protection. Quick as thought he ordered 
her to moimt behind him. She obeyed, and in that 
way rode to Germantown, a distance of thr^^j aiiles. 
During the whole ride, writes the major in his journal, 
where we find these details, ' Although there was con- 
siderable firing of pistols, and not a little wheeling and 
charging, she remained unmoved, and never once com- 
plained of fear.' " ' 

1 Noble Deeds. &(>., p. 239. 



54 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

During the war a woman's society was formed, 
whose object was the relief of the soldiers who were 
in need of clothing. In 1780 the ladies of Philadel- 
phia city and county sold their jewelry, and converted 
other trinkets into something more serviceable, col- 
lected large sums of money, purchased the raw mate- 
rial, plied the needle with all diligence ; and, in a short 
time, the aggregate amount of their contributions was 
seventy-five hundred dollars. This sum was raised in 
and immediately around Philadelphia. The efforts of 
the ladies were not, however, hmited to their own 
neighborhood. They addressed circulars to the adjoin- 
ing counties and States; and the response of New 
Jersey and Maryland was truly generous. The number 
of shirts made by the ladies of Philadelphia during 
that patriotic movement was twenty - two hundred. 
These were cut out at the house of Mrs. Sarah Bache, 
daughter of Dr. Franklin. This lady, writing to a 
Mrs. Meredith of Trenton, N.J., at the time, says, ' I 
am happy to have it in my power to tell you that the 
sums given by the good women of Philadelphia, for 
the benefit of the army, have been much greater than 
could be expected, and given with so much cheerful- 
ness, and so many blessings, that it was rather a pleas- 
ing than a painful task to call for them. I write to 
claim you as a Philadelphian, and shall tliink myself 
honored in your donation.' " ^ 

In the early part of February, 1770, the women of 
Boston publicly pledged themselves to abstain fi-om the 
use of tea. On Feb. 9 there were three hundred ma- 
trons who had become members of the league. Three 
days after, the young women followed the good exam- 
ple of their mothers, signing the following document : 

» Noble Deeds, p. 78. 



WOMEN OF TELE REVOLUTION. 55 

" We, the daughters of those patriots who have and do 
now appear for the public interest, and in that princi- 
pally regard their prosperity, as such do with pleasure 
engage with them in denying ourselves the drinking of 
foreign tea, in hopes to frustrate a plan which tends to 
deprive the whole community of all that is valuable in 
life." No wonder that after years saw such prodigies 
of valor in those who showed themselves able to prac- 
tise such patriotic self-denial. Side by side the men 
and women of the Revolution objected to and protested 
against "■ taxation without representation." The spirit 
of the ancestry still lives in the true children of such 
noble progenitors. 

Among the active women of the Revolution was 
Esther Reed, the wife of Pres. Reed, who stood at 
the head of the Relief Association in Philadelphia, and 
who wrote a letter to Washington, informing him that 
the subscription of the women amounted to $200,580, 
and X625, 6s. Sd., in specie. Mrs. Reed died in 1780, 
at the early age of thirty-four ; and it was thought that 
her arduous labors hastened her departure. She was 
thus a martyr to liberty, and did not alone deserve that 
distinction. As in the civil war, many other women 
were overworked, and fell a sacrifice to their patriotic 
responsibilities and toils. 

Lydta Darrah is mentioned in the first number of 
" The American Quarterly Review," as an amiable and 
heroic Quakeress of Philadelphia, who overheard the 
order read for the British troops to march out and 
attack Washington's army, then at White Marsh. She 
obtained a pass from Gen. Howe, for a visit to a mill 
for flour ; and going safely through the British lines, 
leaving her bag at the mill, she hastened to the Ameri- 
can lines, saw Col. Craig, and told him what she had 



66 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

overheard. By means of that information, the Ameri- 
can army was saved ; for the British found them pre- 
pared, and forbore to make the contemplated attacli:. 

Butler's " History of Grotou," in Massachusetts, 
states that, " After the departure of Col. Prescott's 
regiment of ' minute-men,' Mrs. David Wright of Pep- 
perell, Mrs. Job Shattuck of Groton, and the neigh- 
boring women, collected at what is now Jewett's 
Bridge, over the Nashua, between Pepperell and Gro- 
ton, clothed in their absent husbands' apparel, and 
armed with muskets, pitchforks, and such other weap- 
ons as they could find ; and, having elected Mrs. 
Wright their commander, resolutely determined that 
no foe to freedom, foreign or domestic, should pass that 
bridge. For rumors were rife, that the regulars were 
approaching ; and frightful stories of slaughter flew 
rapidly from place to place, and from house to house. 
Soon there appeared one on horseback, supposed to be 
treasonably engaged in conveying intelligence to the 
enemy. By the implicit command of Sergeant Wright, 
he was immediately arrested, unhorsed, searched, and 
the treasonable correspondence found concealed in his 
boots. He was detained prisoner, and sent to Oliver 
Prescott, Esq., of Groton, and his despatches were sent 
to the Committee of Safety." 

Historians tell us of the Kentucky women braves, 
who were successful in warding off the attacks of 
Indians in the early days of our country ; and the wife 
of a Mr. John Merrill of Nelson County is specially 
mentioned, as brave and successful in her defence of 
her home during the summer of 1787. She was "a 
perfect Amazon in strength and courage." Such 
women were needed in those " dark and bloody days." 
That American women have never been wanting in 



WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION. 67 

bravery, either in Revolutionary days or since, Mrs. 
Ann Chase showed to the world, when, at the capture 
of Tampico in 1846, she displayed the American flag, 
opposed by the common council. No menaces could 
awe this intrepid woman, the wife of the American 
consul, who, in her daring and patriotism, had also pre- 
viously given Commodore Connor full information in 
regard to the defence of the place. 

Dicey Langston was a South Carolina woman, who 
was equal to the times of emergency which often came 
in the days of the Revolution. She was in the good 
custom of conveying intelligence to the friends of free- 
dom. The British would have despised her as a spy, 
but we honor her as the friend of a holy cause. She 
often hazarded her life in crossing marshes and creeks 
to save the lives of others ; and on one occasion, when 
she was returning from a settlement of Whigs, she was 
set upon by a party of Tories, and questioned. " The 
leader of the band then held a pistol to her breast, and 
threatened to shoot her, if she did not make the wished- 
for disclosure. ' Shoot me, if you dare I I will not tell 
you I ' was her dauntless reply, as she opened a long 
handkerchief that covered her neck and bosom, thus 
manifesting a willingness to receive the contents of the 
pistol, if the officer insisted on disclosures or life. The 
dastard, enraged at her defying movement, was in the 
act of firing, at which moment one of the soldiers 
threw up the hand holding the weapon, and the cower- 
less heart of the girl was permitted to beat on ' Re- 
becca MoTTB has her name also on the scroll of honor, 
as one who willingly consented to tlie burning of her 
large mansion, which stood near the trench, in order to 
effect the capture of Fort Motte, which was then in 
the hands of the British. The Americans wore suo- 



58 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBT. 

cessful, partly by the firing of arrows so prepared as to 
set fire to the shingles of the roof ; and those arrows 
had been presented to Mrs. Motte by a favorite Afri- 
can. She saved them when the British officer allowed 
her to pass out of the fort to the Americans ; and he 
was greatly displeased that they should be used against 
him. 

Elizabeth Steele is worthy of note for her patri- 
otic donation made to Gen. Greene in an hour of need. 
She was the landlady of the hotel in Salisbury, N.C. ; 
and the wounded Americans were brought to her house. 
The general felt much discouraged ; for, added to the 
defeat at the battle of the Cowpens, he was penniless. 
Mrs. Steele generously donated to the cause he repre- 
sented two bags of specie, saying, " Take these, for 
you will want them, and I can do without them." 
Gen. Greene's biographer says, " Never did relief come 
at a more propitious moment ; nor would it be straining 
conjecture, to suppose that he resumed his journey with 
his spirits cheered and brightened by this touching 
proof of woman's devotion to the cause of her coun- 
try." 

Mary Redmond was called in Philadelphia " the 
little black-eyed rebel," because she was so ready to 
assist women whose husbands were in the American 
army, in gaining intelligence from the camp. Mrs. 
EUet states, that " the despatches were usually sent 
from their friends by a boy, who carried them stitched 
in the back of his coat. He came into the city bring- 
ing jn-ovisions to market. One morning, when there 
was some reason to fear he was suspected, and his 
movements watched by the enemy, Mary undertook to 
get the papers in safety from him. She went, as usual, 
to the market, and, in a pretended game of rompa 



WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION. 69 

threw her shawl over the boy's head, and thus secured 
the prize. She hastened with the papers to her .anxious 
friends, who read them by stealth, after the windows 
had been carefully closed. When the news came of 
Burgoyne's sun-ender, and the Whig women were se- 
cretly rejoicing, the sprightly girl, not daring to give 
vent openly to her exultation, put her head up the 
chimney, and gave a shout for Gates." 

Hannah Israel, whose maiden name was Erwin, 
was the wife of a farmer so patriotic, that he declared 
he would sooner drive his cattle as a present to George 
Washington, than receive thousands of dollars in Brit- 
ish gold for them. He was taken prisoner, and was on 
board a British frigate anchored in the Delaware in 
front of his house, when the commander, who had been 
told of that saying by some telltale loyalists, ordered 
some soldiers to drive the cattle down to the river's 
bank, and slaughter them before their rebel owner's 
eyes. Mrs. Israel, who was brave as a Spartan, divined 
the purpose of the soldiers, and, calling a boy eight 
years old, started off in haste to defeat their project. 
"They threatened, and she defied, till at last they fired 
at her. The cattle, more terrified than she, scattered 
over the fields ; and, as the balls flew thicker, she called 
on the little boy ' Joe ' the louder and more earnestly 
to help, determined that the assailants should not have 
one of the cattle. They did not. She drove them all 
intc the barnyard, when the soldiers, out of respect to 
her courage or for some other cause, ceased theii 
molestations, and returned to the frigate." * 

The noble deeds of the days of Revolutionary hero 
ism were not all confined to the women who were of 
the dominant race. Red women, as well as white, who 

' Nol.lH Deeds, Ac, p. 165 



60 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

dwelt in our land in those days, were inspired with gen- 
erous asdor and benevolent zeal. Says Mr. Clement, 
" During the Revolution, a young Shawanese Indian 
was captured by the Cherokees, and sentenced to die 
at the stake. He was tied, and the usual preparations 
were made for his execution, when a Cherokee woman 
went to the warrior to whom the prisoner belonged, 
and, throwing a parcel of goods at his feet, said she 
was a widow, and would adopt the captive as her son, 
and earnestly plead for his deliverance. Her prayer 
was granted, and the prisoner taken under her care." 
Emily Geiger was a messenger from Gen. Greene to 
Gen. Sumter. Her mission was a dangerous one, for 
spies often paid for their temerity with their lives. 
She was mounted on horseback on a side-saddle, aiad 
was intercepted by Lord Rawdon's scouts. She could 
not deny that she came from the direction of Greene's 
army ; and therefore she was locked up, and an old Tory 
matron ordered to search her. She did not wish to be 
proved as a spy, nor have the intelligence in the letter 
she was bearing imparted to the British. She there- 
fore, while alone, ate up the letter piece by piece ; and, 
when the searcher arrived, she was unable to find any 
trace of her errand upon her, and she was allowed to 
depart. She hastened to the camp of Gen. Sumter, 
and delivered her message verbally. 

Nancy Van Alstine is said to be "one of the 
bravest and noblest mothers of the Revolution." Her 
fifteen children could " rise up and call her blessed ; " 
for her life was pure and noble, and, in the days of her 
country's peril from hostile tribes of Indians, she was 
fearless and undaunted. The pioneer families in many 
parts of our land, a century ago, had reason to keep a 
vigilant watch over their children and goods, lest tJie 



WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION. 61 

Startling war-whoop, too often heard, might be followed 
by theft, destruction, and awful massacre, 

Martha Bratton was a woman of the Revolution,. 
of whose deeds and character we may judge by the 
following toast given at Brattonsville, S.C., on the 12th. 
July, 1839, at a celebration of Huck's defeat : " The 
memory of Mrs. Martha Bratton. In the hands of an 
infuriated monster, with the instrument of death around 
her neck, she nobly refused to betray her husband : 
in the hour of victory, she remembered mercy, and aa 
a guardian angel interposed in behalf of her inhuman 
enemies. Throughout the Revolution, she encouraged 
the Whigs to fight on to the last, to hope on to the 
end. Honor and gratitude to the woman and heroine, 
who proved herself so faithful a wife, so firm a friend 
to liberty I " . v 

Elizabeth Zane, — she was the young heroine of 
Fort Henry. When the little band in the garrison at 
the mouth of Wheeling Creek, in Ohio County, Va., 
were holding out against thirty or forty times their 
number of savage assailants, and were about to sur- 
render for lack of powder, Elizabeth Zane insisted upon 
being the one who should risk life in seeking to obtain 
a keg which was in a house ten or twelve rods from 
the gate of the fort. The Indians did not molest her 
till on her return they divined the nature of her errand, 
and then they fired upon her ; but " the whizzing balls 
only gave agility to her feet, and herself and the prize 
were quickly safe within the gate. The result was that 
the soldiers, inspired with enthusiasm by this heroic 
adventure, fought with renewed courage ; and, before 
the keg of powder was exhausted, the enemy raised the 
siege." This occurred during the Revolutionary war. 

Esther Gaston showed her bravery by mounting 



62 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

her horse, and, with her sister-in-law, hastening to the 
battle of Rocky Mount. Meeting some cowardly runa- 
ways, they asked them for their guns, and proposed to 
stand in their places, whereupon the men returned lo 
duty ; and, while the fight was raging, Esther and her 
companion cared for the wounded and the dying. 

Mahy Ann Gibbes, when but a girl of thirteen, 
earned the name of heroine, as she went back in the 
dark, and amid firing of guns, to the mansion of her 
father on John's Island, near Charleston, S.C, in order 
to rescue a boy cousin who had accidentally been left 
in the hands of the British when the rest of the family 
fled. Even the young girls had the spirit of heroism and 
patriotism which marked the women of the Revolution. 

Mrs. Wilson, the wife of Robert Wilson, whose own 
name we do not know, was one worthy to be remem- 
bered as the mother of eleven sons, most of whom were 
soldiers, and some were officers, in the war of the Revo- 
lution, and who, when asked by Lord Cornwallis to use 
her influence with her husband and sons, who were his 
prisoners, to induce them to fight for the crown, 
replied, — 

" I have seven sons who are now or have been bear- 
ing arms ; indeed, my seventh son Zaccheus, who is only 
fifteen years old, I yesterday assisted to get ready to go 
and join his brotliers in Sumter's army. Now, sooner 
than see one of my family turn back from this glorious 
enterprise, 1 would take these boys," pointing to three 
or four small sons, " and with them would myself enlist 
under Sumter's standard, and show my husband and 
sons how to fight, and, if necessary, to die for their 
country." That woman deserves to be known as the 
heroine of Steel Creek. 

Mbs. Shitbrick. wife of Richard Shubrick, defended 



WOMEN OF TELE REVOLUTION. 63 

an American soldier who had sought refuge with her, 
by placing herself before the chamber in which he was 
secreted, and resolutely telling the British officer, " To 
men of honor, the chamber of a lady should be as 
sacred as the sanctuary. I will defend the passage to 
it, though I perish. You may succeed and enter it, 
but it shall be over my corpse." The officer ceased 
further search. On another occasion, she reproved a 
British sergeant for striking a servant of their family, 
inflicting a severe sabre-wound on his shoulders, be- 
cause he could not disclose the place where the plate 
was hidden, and told him to strike her, if any one ; 
for, till she died, no further injury should be done to 
the aged overseer. The sergeant, discomfited, retired. 

Mary Kntght, the sister of Gen. Warrell, had the 
following tribute to her patriotism and humanity paid 
to her by a New Jersey newspaper in July, 1849 : 
" The deceased was one of those devoted women who 
aided to relieve the horrible sufferings of Washington's 
army at Valley Forge, cooking and carrying provisions 
to them alone, in the depth of winter, even passing 
through the outposts of the British army in the dis- 
guise of a market - woman. And, when Washington 
was compelled to retreat before a superior force, she 
concealed her brother Gen. Warrell — when the Brit- 
ish set a price on his head — in a cider-hogshead in the 
cellar for three days, and fed him through the bung- 
hole ; the house being ransacked four different times 
by the troops in search of him, without success. She 
was over ninety years of age at the time of her death." 

Margaret Corbin was one to whom might have 
been said, — 

*' Where cannon boomed, where bayonets clashed, 
There was thy fiery way." 



64 WOMEN OF THE OBNTITRY. 

Mr. Clement's account of her is as follows : " An acl; 
similar to that recorded of Mrs. Pitcher at the battle 
of Monmouth was performed by Mrs. Margaret Corbin 
at the attack on Fort Washington. Her husband be- 
longed to the artillery ; and standing by his side, and 
seeing him fall, she unhesitatingly took his place, and 
heroically performed his duties. Her services were 
appreciated by the officers of the army, and honorably 
noticed by Congress. This body passed the following 
resolution in July, 1779 : ' Resolved, that Margaret Cor- 
bin, wounded and disabled at the battle of Fort Wash- 
ington while she heroically filled the post of her hus- 
band, who was killed by her side serving a piece of 
artillery, do receive during her natural life, or continu- 
ance of said disability, one-half the monthly pay drawn 
by a soldier in service of these States ; and that she 
now receive, out of public stores, one suit of clothes, 
or value thereof in money.' " 

Other women there were, who won a fair renown in 
Revolutionary days. The hmit of this chapter forbids 
further mention ; but those who will read Mrs. Ellet's 
" Women of the Revolution " will find her pages full 
of thrilling interest ; and will place the names of Eliza- 
beth Clay, Susannah, Sabina, and Anna Elliott,. 
Sabah Hopton, Jane Washington, Martha Wil- 
son, and a host of others, whose sympathy eucoiu-agedl 
the men who fought for freedom, and whose bravery 
and valor entitled them to honorable remembrance foi 
many a century, side by side with the names of those 
who signed the Declaration of Independence, and 
pledged to the cause of liberty " their fives, theii 
fortunes, and their sacred honor." 




CHAPTER III. 

THE WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

Martha Washington — Abigail Adams — Martha Jefferson — Dolly 
P. Madison — Mrs. Monroe — Louisa Catherine Adams — Kachel 
Jackson — Hannah Van Buren — Anna Harrison — Letitia Chris- 
tian Tyler — Julia Gardner Tyler — Sarah Polk — Margaret Taylor 
— Abigail Filmore — Jane Appleton Pierce — Mary Todd Lincoln — 
Eliza Johnson — Julia Grant — Lucy Hayes — Lucretia R. Garfield — 
Ella L. Arthiu' — Frances Folsom Cleveland— Caroline Scott Harrison. 



'Fame hatli a voice whose thrilling tone 

Can bid the life-pulse beat; 
As wlien a trumpet's note hath blown, 

Warning the hosts to meet; 
But. ah ! let mine, a woman's breast. 
With words of home-born love be blessed." 



Mks. Hemans. 



"Her husband is known in the 
the land." — Pkov. xxxi. 23. 



s, when he sitteth among the elders of 



IT must be acknowledged that some of the women 
whom this chapter places prominent among the 
Women of the Century are mainly known and honored 
because connected with their illustrious husbands ; yet 
it is not true of them all, that their position in the 

65 



66 WOMEN OF THE CENTTJBT. 

nation, as the wives of our chief magistrates, was their 
only claim to recognition or remembrance. They were 
nearly all women of intellectual power and moral worth ; 
and some of them were eminently fit to be regarded 
when occupying the White House, as " the first lady 
of the nation." 

Mrs. Laura 0. Holloway, in her very interesting 
book, " The Ladies of the White House," has made the 
path smooth for the writer of this chapter: and the 
reader who would know more of those women who 
were the wives of our Presidents are urged to peruse 
her glowing pages, assured that they will have all the 
flavor of romance, and the value of truth. 

Martha Washington was the first who was hon- 
ored as a President's wife, and her history is perhaps as 
familiar to as as any ; for historian and biographer have 
viod with each other in presenting to us a vivid picture 
of the charming w'dow — Mrs. Martha Custis — whom 
Col. Washington gladly made his wife. Her maiden 
name was Dandridge, an J 5he was a descendant of the 
Rev. Orlando Jones, a clergyman of Wales. She is 
described as being " rather below the middle size, but 
extremely well shaped, with an agreeable countenance, 
dark hazel eyes and hair, and those frank, engaging 
manners so captivating in Southern women. She was 
not a beauty, but gentle and winning in her nature, 
and eminently congenial to her illustrious husband. 
During their long and happy married life, he ever wore 
her likeness on his heart." She was but twenty-five 
when left a widow with two children by her first hus- 
band. Col. Custis. The daughter died at the age of 
sixteen ; the son lived to be one of his illustrious step- 
father's aids, and then died at the age of twenty-eight, 
leaving four children, two of whom were adopted by 




MAKTHA WASHINGTON. 



THE WrV^S OF THE PRESIDENTS. 69 

their graudmother, and ever after were the charge of 
Lady Washington and her noble husband. Benson J. 
Lossing thus describes the wife of the first President, 
as pictured in the days of her widowhood : " In the 
drawing-room at Arlington House, in Virginia, is a 
portrait of a beautiful woman, young and elegant, yet 
of matronly gravity. She is dressed richly, but in 
simple patterns and dignified arrangements. She is 
plucking a blossom from a shrub, apparently uncon- 
scious of the act, for her thoughts are evidently in the 
direction of her eyes that beam upon some more distant 
object. It is a pleasant picture, painted more than a 
hundred years ago, by Wollaston. It is the portrait 
of Martha Custis, a wealthy widow, and one of the 
most attractive of the women who graced the vice- 
royal court at Williamsburg, the ancient capital of Vir- 
ginia." On Jan. 17, 1759, Rev. David Mossom officiat- 
ing, that lady became Martha Washington. Her life 
for several years was one of unbroken sunshine. She 
received the best society of the country as the wife of 
a prosperous planter ; occasionally visiting Williams- 
burg with her husband, for Washington was for fifteen 
years a member of the Legislature. 

Then came the weary years of war, and for eight 
years the home was shadowed by his absence. " The 
trial of separation was mitigated, although often pro- 
longed to wear)' months. ' Even when the long Indian 
Summer days of October shed glory over the burnished 
forest trees, her cumbrous carriage, with its heavy 
hangings and massive springs, suggestive of comfort, 
was brought to the door, and laden with all the appur- 
tenances of a winter's visit. Year after year, as she had 
ordered supplies for this annual trip to her husband's 
^amp, she trusted it would be the last, . . . 



70 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

" The battles were fierce, and the struggles long ; and, 
if the orderly matron disliked the necessity of leaving 
home so often and for so long a time, her heart was 
glad of the sacrifice when she reached the doubly 
anxious husband who was watching and waiting for 
her ; anxious for his wife, somewhere on the road, and 
for his bleeding country, struggling unavailingly for 
the eternal principles of freedom. . . . Never but once 
or twice had those yearly moves been disagreeable ; and, 
though universally unoffending, she felt the painful 
effects of party bitterness. . . . Once, after an active 
campaign, as she was passing through Philadelphia, she 
was insulted by the ladies there, who declined noticing 
her by any civilities whatever. The tide in the affairs 
of men came ; and, alas, for human nature 1 many of 
those haughty matrons were the first to welcome her 
there as the wife of the President.'' 

Mrs. Washington was extremely plain in her dress, 
and displayed little taste for those luxurious ornaments 
deemed appropriate for the wealthy and the great. In 
her own home the spinning-wheels and looms were kept 
constantly going ; and her dresses were many times 
woven by her servants. Gen. Washington wore at his 
inauguration a full suit of fine cloth, the handiwork 
of his own household. At a ball given in New Jersey 
in honor to herself, she wore a "• simple russet gown," 
and white handkerchief about her neck, thereby setting 
an example to the women of the Revolution, wh( 
could ill afford to spend their time or means as lavishly 
as they might have desired. " On one occasion, she 
gave the best proof of her success in domestic manufac- 
tures by the exhibition of two of her dresses, whicf 
were composed of cotton striped with silk, and entirely 
homemade. The silk stripe,":^ in the fabric were woven 



TETB WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 71 

from ' the ravelings of brown silk stockings and old 
crimson chair-covers.' As a wife, mother, and friend, 
she was worthy of respect ; but only as the com- 
panion of Washington is her record of public interest. 
She was in no wise a student, hardly a regular reader, 
nor gifted with literary ability ; but if that law, stern 
necessity^ which knows no deviation, had forced her 
from her seclusion and luxury, hers would have been 
anorganizationof active goodness. . . . She assumed the 
duties of her position as wife of the chief magistrate, 
with the twofold advantage of wealth and high social 
position ; and was in manner, appearance, and character, 
the pleasing and graceful representative of a class of 
which, unfortunately, the original is now taken from 
us, — a lady of the olden time." ^ The republican 
court was held in Franklin Street, New York, at first; 
but in the second year the seat of government was re- 
moved to Philadelphia, and Pres. Washington rented a 
house in Market Street, between Fifth and Sixth Streets. 
At the close of his administration, they retired to 
Mount Vernon, and there Martha Washington became 
again a widow. History has painted often the scene of 
Washington's last hours ; but no pen could faithfully 
depict the grief of her who said as she took one last, 
lingering look at the room in which he died (a room 
she would never enter again), " 'Tis well all is now 
over. I shall soon follow him. I have no more trials 
to pass through." Two years passed away, and then 
she went to him ; and their remains rest side by side in 
the sarcophagi at Mount Vernon. Not soon will the 
writer of these pages forget her pilgrimage thither. 
The beauty of that April day, when with my daughter 
and my friend I stood beside that sacred niausoleum, 

1 Ladies of the White House, pp. 20, 22. 30. 



72 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

and thought of the illustrious pair whom death had not 
divided, and gathered the purple flowers of the myrtle 
growing luxuriantly there, as mementos of the visit to 
the hallowed scenes of Mount Vernon, will long be 
pleasantly remembered ; and the lapse of time will fail 
to take away the blessed influence of that memorable 
day. 

And well wrote Mrs. HoUoway : " Stealtliily the 
years go by, and we wist not they are passing : yet the 
muffled and hoarse voice of a century astounds us with 
its parting. The centennial birthdays have been cele- 
brated ; soon we approach the hundreth anniversary of 
victories won and independence achieved. If the glad, 
free spirits of the chief and his companion are per- 
mitted to review tlieir earthly pilgrimage, let it be a 
source of gratification to us to know they smile upon a 
Republic of peace. Their bodies we guard, while they 
crmnble away in the bosom of theii* birthplace ; and, as 
long as a son of America remains a freeman, it will be a 
well-spring of inspiration, to feel that Virginia contains 
the Pater Patrice, and the woman immortalized by his 
love." ^ 

Abigail Adams, the wife of Pres. John Adams, 
was the daughter of a New England Congregationalist 
clergyman named Smith, and was born in Weymouth, 
Mass., in 1744. Her father lived in the days of long 
pastorates, and for forty years he was settled in Wey- 
mouth : her grandfather was a Congregationalist minis- 
ter in a neighboring town. . Born of such stock, we 
might expect a conscientious woman ; and Mi-s. Adams 
was all that those words imply. She was cultured also, 
end a woman of remarkable judgment, as well as imagina- 
tive and poetic ability. She excelled as an epistolary 

1 Ladiua of tlie White House, p. 58. 



THE WIVES OF THE PEESIDRNTS. 73 

correspondent, in proof of which is the fact that the 
** Letters of Mrs. Adams " are still read with pleasure 
and profit. During the early years of her married life 
she was often charged with the sole care of their chil- 
dren, while her husband was attending to his profes- 
sional and other duties in Congress ; and it was on one 
of these occasions that she witnessed the cannonading 
around Boston, as the British sought to secure a victory 
over patriotism that was unfaltering, and a love of 
liberty that nothing could paralyze. Her husband was 
chosen to go on a mission from Congress to France, and 
took their eldest son, John Quincy Adams, with him ; 
and in loneliness, but with courage and fidelity, she 
cared for the rest of the flock at home. In those days 
there were no steamships nor ocean cables, so that news 
from the Old World must be long in reaching the 
patient, waiting wife. But she was worthy of the 
praise so willingly accorded to her in this centennial 
year. " Circumscribed as her lot was, she has left upon 
the pages of history an enviable record ; and, while 
Americans forget not to do honor to her husband's zeal 
and greatness, her memory lends a richer perfume, and 
sheds a radiance round the incidents of a life upon 
which she wielded so beneficial an influence." ^ All 
through the years of lier husband's absence in Europe, 
at the court of Great Britain and elsewhere, she was 
the faithful, active wife and mother, caring for her aged 
father and for her children. At last the time arrived 
when she could leave her home, and cross the ocean 
to her husband's side. Her father had gone to the 
heavenly home, her sons were placed with careful 
guardians, and her only daughter accompanied her to 
England. She remained one year in France and three 

1 Ladies of the White House, p . 69 



74 WOMKN OF THE CENTURY. 

in England, and then returned to tne land of her birth. 
Her husband being elected vice-president, she accom- 
panied him to the seat of the United States Government, 
where she was respected and beloved. Her letters 
show, better than these brief sentences can possibly do, 
the woman of sound sense and varied culture and noble 
heart. May the new century furnish many readers for 
them ! 

" The first New- Year's reception at the White House 
in Washington was held by Pres. Adams in 1801. The 
house was only partially furnished ; and Mrs. Adams 
used the oval room up stairs, now the library, as a 
drawing-room. The formal etiquette established by 
Mrs. Washington at New York and Philadelphia was 
kept up in the wilderness-city by Mrs. Adams." ^ 
Owing to the failure of her health, she soon after 
sought the bracing air of her native State, and resided 
much of her time at Quincy, Mass. " She lived in 
Washington only four months, and yet she is insep- 
arably connected with it. She was mistress of the 
White House less than half a year ; but she stamped it 
with her individuality, and none have lived there since 
who have not looked upon her as the model and guide. 
. . . The sacrifices made by Mrs. Adams during the 
long era of war, pestilence, and famine, deserve and 
should receive from a nation's gratitude a monument 
as high and massive as her illustrious husband's. Let 
it be reared in the hearts of the women of America, 
who may proudly claim her as a model ; and let her 
fame be transmitted to remotest posterity, — the Portia 
of the rebellious provinces. . . . Not in marble or 
bronze be her memory perpetuated, for we need no such 
hieroglyphics in this country of free schools. Place hex 

J Laiiies of the White House, p. 99. 



THE "WIVES OF THE PKESIDENTS. 75 

nistory in the libraries of America, and the children of 
freedom will live over her deeds. On the 18th of Oc- 
tober, 1818, then seventy-four years of age, she ceased 
to live in the flesh, and her remains were placed by the 
side of her husband, in Quincy, Mass., while a marble 
slab beside the pulpit in the church where they wor- 
shipped, surmounted by the bust of the husband, bears 
an inscription in memory of both parents, written by 
their eldest son." 

The next wife of an American president here to be 
mentioned is Martha Jefferson. She had been dead, 
however, nineteen years before her husband entered 
the White House as its master. She is said to have 
been remarkable for her beauty and accomplishments. 
She died in 1782, leaving three children. '' It was her 
fate to die young, and be denied the honors that, later 
in life, crowned the brow of her gifted husband. Had 
she survived, no more pleasant life could have been 
traced, than this gentle, cultivated Southerner's." 

Dolly P. Madison is the name by which the 
wife of President Madison is known, though she was 
called Dorothy by her Quaker parents. She was born 
in North Carolina, May 20, 1772. Like Mrs. Jefferson, 
she was twice married. She was wedded to Mr. Madi- 
son in October, 1794. She is said to have been " hum- 
ble-hearted, tolerant, and sincere. . . . The power of 
adaptiveness was a life-giving principle in her nature. 
With a desire to please, and a willingness to be pleased, 
she was popular in society. . . . During the eiglit 
years' life of her husband as Secretary of State, she 
dispensed with no niggard hand the abundant wealth 
she rightly prized ; and the poor of the district loved 
her name as a household deity. In 1810 Mr. Madison 
was elected president ; and, after Mr. Jefferson left the 



76 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

city he removed to the White House. Under the 
former administration, Mrs. Madison had, during 
the absences of Mr. Jefferson's daughters, presided at 
the receptions and levees, and was in every particular 
fitted to adorn her position as hostess of the mansion 
she was called to preside over. . . Mrs. Madison's 
sole aim was to be popular, and render her husband's 
administration brilliant and successful. Her field wa?! 
the parlor; and, with the view of reigning supreme 
there, she bent the energies of her mind to the one 
idea of accomplishment. In her thirty-seventh year 
she entered the White House." ^ When the second war 
with Great Britain was declared, she was there. 

History tells us how the Secretary of State labored 
to preserve the valuable documents, which, in this 
centennial year, will be gazed upon by thousands with 
so much pride and interest. Among them was the 
original Declaration of Independence. As we look 
back to those days, it seems almost incredible that the 
Capitol, the White House, and other public edifices, 
could have been ruthlessly demolished by a foreign foe. 
Under Mrs. Madison's supervision, the magnificent 
portrait of Gen. Washington was taken down, and 
carried to a place of safety. 

The British soon evacuated the city ; and the presi- 
dent and family returned, but to a home of blackened 
ruins. Peace was restored ; and in 1816 the levee of 
the president was spoken of as the most brilhant ever 
seen in the Executive Mansion. " It was on this occa- 
sion that Mr. Bagot made the remark, that Mrs. Madi- 
son ' looked every inch a queen.' " Mrs. Madison was 
in no sense " a learned woman, but decidedly a talented 
one ; and her name will ever be a synonyme for all that 
1 Ladies of the While House. 



THE WITES OP THE PRESIDENTS. 77 

is charming and agreeable." Mrs. Madison survived 
her husband, and died at the age of eighty -two, on the 
12th of July, 1849, "beloved by all who personally 
knew her, and universally respected." 

Mes. Monroe is almost unknown. Her name wag 
Eliza Kortright before marriage, if the statement con- 
cerning a Washington belle of that name in " Ladies of 
the White House " refers to her ; but the author of that 
book adds shortly after, " Not a line was written of 
Mrs. Monroe during her life, save a mention after her 
husband's election to the presidency ; nor has any his- 
tory of his life been written from which to glean even 
A mention of her name." And still further on she 
says, " Of gentle and winning manners was Mrs. Mon- 
roe, and possessed of a face upon which beauty was 
written in unmistakable lines. Tall and gracefully 
formed, polished and elegant in society, she was one 
fitted to represent her countrywomen at the court of 
St. Cloud," whither she accompanied her husband. 
The story of her fearless visit to Madame Lafayette, 
when she was confined in the Austrian prison, reflects 
great credit upon her. 

In after-time she acted well her part as the wife of 
the American minister in England and Spain, spending 
about ten years in Europe. " When the war of 1812 
was declared, Mrs. Monroe was living in Washington 
City, dispensing the duties of" her station as wife of 
the Secretary of State, " and enjoying the society of 
her two daughters." In 1817 her husband became 
president, and she then dwelt in the White House ; and 
the leading paper called her " an elegant, accomplished 
woman, possessing a charming mind and dignity of 
manners which peculiarly fitted her for her elevated 
station " But she was of domestic tastes, and did not 



78 WOMEN OF THE OBNTUBY. 

enjoy the formal or senseless talk usual in drawing- 
room receptions. She mingled but little in society ; 
and, as her health failed, she became still more a 
recluse. She died suddenly in 1830. " Little of 
interest or variety is there connected with one whose 
identity was so completely merged in her husband's 
existence." 

LomsA Catherine Adams was the wife of John 
Quincy Adams, the son of the second president, and 
himself the sixth president of the United States. 
" With her closed the hst of the ladies of the Revolu- 
tion. A new generation had sprung up in the forty- 
nine years of independence. She was London born, 
her parents, though patriotic Americans, having their 
home in England at the outbreak of the war. He was 
appointed by the Federal Congress a commissioner, and 
therefore at once removed to Nantes. But, when our 
national independence was recognized, he returned to 
Loudon ; and there she was married to Mr. Adams, who 
took her shortly after to Berlin, where she was a happy 
bride ; and for four years she maintained a high posi- 
tion in the regard of all who knew her, winning friends 
for herself and her country. In 1801, after the birth 
of her eldest child, she came to the United States ; and, 
as her husband was soon elected senator to Washing- 
ton, she found her home in tne sunny South till her 
husbaud was appointed minister to Russia ; and they 
sailed from Boston, leaving her two eldest cliildren 
with their grandparents, and taking a third, not two 
years old. Europe was a battlefield then ; and, while 
in St. Petersburg, they waited for Napoleon to conquer 
Russia. During the six years of her stay in Russia, 
what wondrous things transpired, what intense 
interest marked the era, we in comparative quiet cac 
scarcely conceive. 



THE WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 79 

" Death took from her an infant, born whilst there ; 
and the twofold afiQiction of public and private trouble 
weighed upon her." They lived frugally, laying a foun- 
dation for future competence in America. National 
affairs called Mr. Adams to Ghent; and she was left 
" alone in tliat place where she had lived five years," 
tci pass a sixth winter longing for release. At last she 
^ as advised to travel by land to join her husband hi 
Paris. She went ; and " hers piust have been an in- 
domitable spirit, else the lonely days of constant motion 
through villages, and wild, uncultivated countries, 
where every inanimate thing bore traces of grim-visaged 
war, would have convinced her of the risk she was 
running. With the passports of the Russian govern- 
ment, and the strong recommendation of being the 
American minister's wife, she bade adieu to all appre- 
hensions, and risked all to only get nearer home and 
children," Her husband being appointed minister to 
the Court of St. James, they found their home in Lon- 
don in May, 1815 ; and there she gathered her children 
once more about her. In 1817 Mr. Adams was ap- 
pointed Secretary of State, and they returned to 
America, where after a brilliant series of winters in 
Washington, her home being a centre of attraction, 
in 1825 her husband was inaugurated President of tlie 
United States ; twenty-eight years after his honored 
and then venerable father had taken the same chair 
With the close of his presidental duties, Mr. Adams 
still served his country in Congress as a representative 
from Massachusetts ; and therefore for fifteen years they 
resided in Washington, though often at his old home in 
Quincy. And his wife was usually at his side. When 
he was suddenly stricken with paralysis in the Capitol, 
she was ill, but hastened to him. He died, and she 



80 WOMEN OF THE CBNTUBT. 

accompanied his remains to Quincy, and there she dwelt 
till, four years after, her remains were placed by his 
side ; and her memory is now cherished by her country 
as that of one worthy to be the daughter-in-law of 
Abigail Adams. 

Rachel Jackson was the beloved wife of Andrew 
Tackson, but ended her earthly life before he entered 
the White House as the President. She was the 
daughter of Col, John Donelson ; and her early home 
was in the wilds of Kentucky, though she was born in 
Virginia. She married a man named Robards ; but he 
was a cruel and unprincipled man, and she was finally 
divorced from him, and married Andrew Jackson. 
" Subsequent events proved this marriage to be one 
of the very happiest ever formed. . . . Nothing could 
exceed the admiration and love, and even deference, of 
Gen. Jackson for his wife. Her wish to him was law. 
It was a blessed ordering of Providence, that this kind, 
good heart should find at last, after so many troubles, a 
tender and true friend and protector, understanding her 
perfectly, and loving her entirely. 

*•' Mrs. Jackson was a noble woman, and abundantly 
blessed with superior sense. She was a good manager, 
a kind mistress, always directing the servants and tak- 
ing care of the estate in her husband's frequent ab- 
sences, and withal a generous and hospitable neighbor. 
. . . She had no children of her own, and it was a 
source of regret to both ; but a fortunate circumstance 
throw a little child across her pathway, and she gladly 
took the babe to her home and heart. Her brother had 
twin boys born to him ; and, wishing to help her sister in 
a care which was so great, she took one of them " ' home 
when but a few days old. The general became «o 

' Ladies of the White House. 



THE WIVES OF THE PRESmENTS. 81 

attached to it that he adopted the child, and gave him 
his own name ; and this son, Andrew Jackson, jnn., 
was the sole heir to the general's large estate. The 
record of Mrs. Jackson's sad early marriage, and of the 
forty years happily spent with Gen. Jackson, is full of 
interest ; and the reader rises from its perusal with a 
profound respect for her as a Christian woman. To 
gratify her, Gen. Jackson built a little church on his 
estate, where a Presbyterian divine ministered to the 
family and neighbors ; and therein she spent many 
happy hours. Her health being delicate, she passed 
most of her happy married life at the Hermitage, as 
their estate was called, visiting Florida and Washing- 
ton with her husband, but preferring the quiet of 
home. 

On the 23d of December, 1828, when the friends of 
the general were expecting to give a public dinner in 
Nashville in his honor, she had parted with earth and 
all its scenes ; and his heart was wrung with grief. Six- 
teen years he mourned for her ; and then the summons 
of re-union came, and the pure wife and brave husband 
were together again. Their remains rest in the garden 
of the Hermitage, a monument being raised over the 
vault ; and tablets are there inscribed, — one with only 
the general's name, and the record of his birth and 
death ; while the other, by his direction, has the follow- 
ing testimony to one woman's worth : " Here lie the 
remains of Mrs. Rachel Jackson, wife of President 
Jackson, who died the 22d December, 1828, aged 61. 
Her face was fair, her person pleasing, her temper 
amiable, and her heart kind. She delighted in reliev- 
ing the wants of her fellow-creatures, and cultivated 
that divine pleasure by the most liberal and unpre- 
tending methods. To the poor she was a benefactor, 



82 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

to the rich an example, to the wretched a comforter, 
to the prosperous an ornament. Her piety went hand in 
hand with her benevolence, and she thanked her Crea- 
tor for being permitted to do good. A being so gentle 
yet so virtuous, slander might wound, but could not 
dishonor. Even Death, when he tore her from the arms 
of her husband, could but transport her to the bosom 
of her God." 

Hannah Van Buren was born in Kinderhook, on 
the Hudson, in 1782. She was but little younger than 
her husband, Martin Van Buren, who was her school- 
mate. She was of Dutch descent. In February, 1807, 
at the age of twenty-five, she married Mr. Van Buren, 
who was then just admitted at the bar. They dwelt 
eight years in Hudson, thence removing to Albany, 
where she died in 1819. She did not live to enter the 
White House. She was the mother of four children, 
one of whom passed on before her. She died in Chris- 
tian hope, calling her children about her, bidding them 
farewell, and committing them to the care of that 
Saviour she loved, and in whom she trusted. " The 
Albany Argus " speaking of her said, " Humility was 
her crowning grace : she possessed it in a rare degree. 
. . . She was an ornament of the Christian faith." 
Seventeen years after her departure, her husband became 
president. 

Anna Symmes Harrison, "the wife of the ninth 
president, was born the famous year of American 
independence, and but a few months after the renowned 
skirmish at Lexington. Her birthplace was near Mor- 
ristown, N.J. Left motherless when very young, she 
was trained by an excellent grandmother on Long Island, 
and became fond of religious reading, and acquired 
habits of industry. She was a pupil at one time of the 



THE WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 83 

well-known Mrs. Isabella Graham, and was an inmate 
of her family. Judge Symmes, her father, took for his 
second wife a daughter of Gov. Livingston of New 
York ; and they removed to Ohio, taking the youthful 
Anna with them. Ohio was then ' the Far West.' In 
her twentieth year Anna became the wife of Capt. Har- 
rison, ' subsequently the most popular general of his day, 
and president of the United States.' Her husband was 
soon after elected to Congress ; and she accompanied him 
to Philadelphia, then the seat of the General Government. 
Gen, Harrison was appointed by Pres. Adams governor 
of the Indiana Territory ; and they removed to Wabash, 
where Mrs. Harrison lived for many years a retired but 
happy life. Dispensing with a liberal hand and courte- 
ous manner the hospitality of the gubernatorial mansion, 
she was beloved and admired by all who knew her. . . 
After the battle of Tippecanoe, Gen. Harrison removed 
his family to Cincinnati, and accepted the position of 
major-general in the forces of Kentucky, then about to 
march to the relief of the North-western Territory. 
Mrs. Harrison was thus left a comparative stranger in 
Cincinnati, with the sole charge of her young and 
large family of children, dui'ing the greater part of the 
war of 1812. During this time several of the cliildren 
were prostrated by long and severe illness ; and to this 
trial was added the painful anxiety attending the fate 
jf her husband. But, under these and all afflictions, 
Mrs. Harrison bore up with the firmness of a Roman 
matron, and the numility and resignation of a tried 
Christian mother." But she experienced sore bereave- 
ments. She was the mother of ten children ; but during 
her residence of thirty years at North Bend " she 
buried one child in infancy, and subsequently followed 
to the grave tliree daughters and four sons (all of whom 



84 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

were settled in life), and ten grandchildren. . . . Her 
influence over her family was strong and abiding ; and 
all loved to do reverence to her consistent, conscientious 
life. Her only surviving son wrote in 1848, ' That I am 
a firm believer in the religion of Christ, is not a virtue 
of mine : I imbibed it at my mother's breast, and can no 
more divest myself of it than I can of my nature.' " 

In 1840 began the exciting presidential campaign 
which is the first remembered by the writer of this vol- 
ume, when she loyally wore the Harrison medal, and 
heard much talk of log-cabins and hard cider, and much 
singing of " Tippecanoe and Tyler too," and other 
campaign songs. The Whig party was successful ; but 
" this triumphant victory brought no sense of pride to 
Mrs. Harrison. She was grateful to her countrymen 
for this unmistakable appreciation of the civil and mili- 
tary services of her husband, and rejoiced at his vindi- 
cation over his traducers ; but she took no pleasure ii^ 
contemplating the pomp and circumstance of a life at 
the Executive Mansion. At no period of her life had 
she any taste for the gayeties of fashion or the dissipa- 
tions of society. Her friends were ever welcome to her 
home, and found there refined pleasures and innocent 
amusement ; but, for the life of a woman of the world, 
she had no sympathy." 

But she was never called to the White House recep- 
tions, grave or gay ; for before she could cross the 
mountains, her health being feeble, the president was 
dead. The blow was sudden and hard, " but it was 
borne meekly by the Christian wife and mother ; and 
she aroused herself from the stupor in which the 
announcement had thrown her." She lingered many 
years, a blessing to her children and grandchildren, and 
to all whom her continual benevolence could reach 



THE WIVES OF THE PBESIDBNTS. 85 

'* Her intellectual powers and physical senses were re- 
tained to the last ; and at the age of eighty-eight she was 
an agreeable companion for both old and young. On 
the evening of the 25th of February, 1864, in the eighty- 
ninth year of her age, she died at the residence of her 
son. Her funeral took place at the Presbyterian Church 
at Cleves, on Sunday, Feb. 28. The sermon was 
preached by the Rev. Horace Bushnell, from the text, 
'Be still, and know that I am God.' The selection 
was made by herself, and given several years before to 
Mr. Bushnell, her pastor and intimate friend for many 
years. The remains were deposited beside those of her 
husband ; and they together sleep by the banks of the 
beautiful Ohio, at North Bend." The faithful pastor 
has now followed them to the better land. 

Pres. John Tyler married first Letitia Christian ; 
and, thirty years afterward, he took for his second 
wife Julia Gardiner. The former was a Virginian, 
the latter a New-Yorker. The first wife was born 
Nov. 12, 1796, and was married to Mr. Tyler, March 
29, 1813. She was a woman of beauty, taste, and 
refinement, but of great modesty. She is said to 
have been " perfectly content to be seen only as a part 
of the existence of her beloved husband." She did 
not court society, and was not ambitious to shine in any 
social circles, though as her husband was successively 
the governor of Virginia, a member of Congress, and 
finally president, she would have had ample opportuni- 
ty. " No English lady was ever more skilled and 
accomplished in domestic culture and economy than 
was Mrs. Tyler, and in her own home was a pattern of 
order, system, and neatness, as well as of hospitahty, 
charity, and benevolence." She was baptized in in- 
fancy in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and in early 



bb WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

life became a consistent communicant. Her daughter- 
in-law spoke of her as " the most entirely unselfish 
person you can imagine." When she died at the 
Executive Mansion, in September, 18-42, many poor 
people of the vicinity gathered round the White 
House in groups, and stood sobbing, and saying, " The 
poor have lost a friend." 

Pres. Tyler was married again in 1844, June 26 ; 
and Miss Julia Gardiner then became the lady of the 
White House. It was the first marriage of a president 
while in ofiSce, that had occurred in this country ; and 
great interest was felt in the matter all over the United 
States. The bride was verj'- much younger than her 
husband. For eight months she performed the agree- 
able task of presiding at the Executive Mansion with 
credit to herself, and pleasure to her friends. She was 
the beautiful daughter of a wealthy gentleman who was 
suddenly killed by an explosion of a cannon while on 
the return-trip from Alexandria to Washington with a 
pleasure-party invited to accompany the president, and 
whose remains were buried from the White House, of 
which, the following summer, his young daughter be- 
came mistress. She was well educated and accom- 
plished. For seventeen years she lived in Virginia, 
retired from public life, until the death of Pres. Tyler 
at Richmond, the 17th January, 1862. After the presi- 
dent's death, Mrs. Tyler made her home in Staten 
Island, N.Y., in circumstances of aflQuence, and sur- 
rounded by her children and friends. 

Sarah Polk was the wife of the eleventh president. 
She was born in Tennessee, Sept. 4, 1803, the daugh- 
ter of a wealthy farmer ; educated at the Moravian 
Institute, at Salem, N.C. She was but nineteen at 
the time of her marriage to James K. Polk, who was 



THE WITBS OF THE PRESIDENTS. 87 

theu a member of the State Legislative. The next 
year, he was elected to Congress, and continued a 
member for fourteen years, in 1836 being Speaker of 
the House. Mrs. Polk accompanied him to Washing- 
ton every winter save one, and " occupied there a con- 
spicuous place in society ; and, by her polite manners 
and sound judgment, made her companionship pleasant 
and inspiriting. She was a highly cultivated without 
being a literary woman." She was a member of the 
Presbyterian Church ; and " her character has been 
entirely a Christian one. She was faithful and devout, 
consistent in her conduct to every rule and require- 
ment of her sect." " The Tennessee Democrat '' said 
of her, " We have seen few women that have devel- 
oped more of tlie genuine republican characteristics of 
the American lady. She has her admirers not only in 
the highest, but in the humblest walks of life. The 
poor know her for her benevolence ; the rich, for the 
plainness of her equipage ; the church, for her consist- 
ency ; the unfortunate, for her charities ; and society 
itself, for the veneration and respect which her vii-tues 
have everywhere awarded her." 

At the close of his presidential term, Mr. Polk 
retired to Nashville, Tenn. ; and there he died. His 
widow still continued to reside at the elegant mansion, 
maintaining her usual dignity and propriety of life, 
calmly awaiting the time when they should be re- 
united. The study of the president is kejtt in order 
by her own hands, just as he left it. Mrs. Holloway 
closed her sketch of her with these words : " The life- 
time imitation of a pure and useful standard of excel- 
lence has rewarded her with a glorious fame ; and she 
dwells among the friends of her youth, honored and 
respected, trusted and beloved." 



88 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

M AUG ABET TAYiiOR was bom in Maryland, and 
became the wife of the twelfth president, Zachary 
Taylor. Her maiden name was Smith. She was 
one of the brave, heroic spirits, who endured the 
hardships of the camp with her husband while he 
was trying to overcome the wily Seminoles in the 
Everglades of Florida, and the savages of our Western 
borders. For a quarter of a century, Gen. Taylor's 
house was a tent ; and all that while Lis wife was his 
companion in privation and hardship, separated much 
from her children, who were generally left at school. 
Her education comprised the practical, rather than the 
intellectual ; and she could prepare her husband's 
meals with success, though she might not have been 
able to plan his campaigns, or write a history of them. 
But she was a Christian woman ; and it was through 
her instrumentality that the Episcopal Church was 
established at Baton Rouge. While her husband was 
winning laurels in Mexico, she was pursuing the 
quiet home-life she loved so well. When her hus- 
band was elected president, she declined to act as the 
lady of the White House ; and her daughter Betty, the 
wife of Major Bliss, took the position, the mother re- 
maining out of sight, in those apartments she had 
selected, and where she received her more intimate 
friends. She preferred to attend personally to her hus- 
band's wants. A year passed, and then came the 
sudden death of that husband ; and with no regard for 
vanished splendor, which she never enjoyed, Mrs. Taylor 
departed for a home in Kentucky, but finally returned 
to the residence of her son in Louisiana, and there 
died, in August, 1852, possessed of a Christian spirit 
and a Christian faith. 

Abigail Fillmore was the daughter of the Rev 



THE WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 89 

Lemuel Powers, a Baptist clergyman, acd was born in 
Stillwater, N.Y., March, 1798. Her father dying while 
she was young, and her mother being left with limited 
means, she was left to struggle with the ills of poverty, 
and to be " made strong through discipline, and spirit- 
ualized through sorrow." Being studious, she soon 
became a teacher, and for several years taught in sum- 
mer, and studied in winter, earning while teaching the 
money to pay for her tuition. She became a thorough 
scholar and an admirable woman. 

While yet a teacher, she met Mr. Fillmore, who was 
then a clothier's apprentice, but teaching in the winter 
months, and looking forward to a place at the bar, for 
which he was studying. In February, 1826, they were 
married, and made their home in Erie County. " Into 
the small house built by the husband's hands, the wife 
carried all the ambition and activity of other days, and 
at once resumed her avocations as a teacher while per- 
forming the duties of maid-of-all-work, housekeeper, and 
hostess. Mr. Fillmore was thus enabled to practise his 
profession, relieved of all care and responsibility by his 
thoughtful wife ; and so rapid was his progress that in 
less than two years he was elected a member of the 
State Legislature. ... In the spring of 1830 Mrs. Fill- 
more removed with her husband to Buffalo. In the 
enjoyment of her children's society, her husband's pros- 
perity, and the pleasure of entertaining her friends, she 
found great happiness ; and, as the years passed by, 
they were noted only for the peace and contentment 
they brought her. . . . Well balanced and self-reliant, 
affectionate and happy, there was wanting nothing to 
complete her character. The domestic harmony of her 
life can be partly appreciated from the remark made by 
ner husband after her death : ' For twenty-seven years^ 



90 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

my entire married life,' he said, ' I was always greeted 
with a happy smile.' . . . After her husband's accession 
to the presidency, she went to the White House ; but 
the recent death of a sister kept her from entering into 
the gayety of the outer world. As much as possible 
she screened herself from public observation, and left 
to her daughter the duties devolving upon her " as the 
president's wife. Her health had become impaired ; ar d 
she died at Willard's Hotel, Washington, March 30, 
1853, and her remains were taken to Buffalo. 

Jane Pierce was born at Hampton, N.H., March 
12, 1806. She was known as Jane Means Appleton. 
Her father, Rev. Jesse Appleton, D.D., assumed the 
presidency of Bowdoin College when she was one year 
old. She was " reared in an atmosphere of cultivation 
and refined Cliristian influences ; " delicate in constitu- 
tion, of strong mind, and great love of the beautiful. 
At the age of twenty-eight she married the Hon. 
Franklin Pierce, then of Hillsborough, and a member 
of the lower house of Congress. " The mother of three 
children, none survived her ; and the death of the last, 
under circumstances so peculiar, shattered the small 
remnant of failing health, and left the mother's heart 
forever desolate." The young son, thirteen years of 
age, was killed by a railroad accident just after the 
election to the presidency. A wi'iter says, " It is no 
disparagement to others who have occupied her station 
at the White House, to claim for her an unsurpassed 
dignity and grace, delicacy and purity, in all that per- 
tains to public life. There was a home, a Christian 
home, quietly and constantly maintained ; and very 
many hearts rejoiced in its blessings." In the autumn 
of 1857 Mrs. Pierce, accompanied by her husband, 
visited the island of Madeira, and afterwards various 



THE WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS 91 

portions of Europe. On the 2d December, 1863, she 
died at Andover, Mass., and was buried by the side of 
her children in Concord, N.H., where her husband con- 
tinued to reside until his death. The press, in referring 
to her departure, spoke of her as possessed of every 
estimable quality which could become a true Christian 
gentlewoman. 

Mary Todd Lincoln was the wife of the beloved 
martyr president ; and the hallowed memory of the 
noble husband sanctifies all connected with his family, 
or bearing his name, in such measure that their faults 
will be likely to be overlooked, and their peculiarities 
excused. Mrs. Lincoln "was a Kentuckian by birth, 
and a member of the good old Todd family of Lexing- 
ton. Her early years were spent in that homely town 
of beautiful surroundings, with an aunt who reared 
her, she being an orphan. Childhood and youth were 
passed in comfort and comparative luxury, nor did she 
ever know poverty. But her restless nature found but 
little happiness in the society of her elders ; and she 
went, when just merging into womanhood, to reside 
with her sister in Springfield. The attractions of this 
then small place were greatly augmented by the society 
of the young people ; and Mary Todd passed the pleas- 
antest years of her life in her sister's Western home. 
On the 4th of November, 1842, at the age of twenty- 
one, she was married to Abraham Lincoln, a prominent 
lawyer of Illinois." Four years later, Mr. Lincoln was 
elected to Congress; but Mrs. Lincoln remained with 
her children in Springfield, 111. " The daughter of a 
Congressman, she became the wife of a successful 
politician, and had ample means and time to develop 
and cultivate herself in every particular." If she did 
not do this, it was not the fault of her husband, but 



92 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

of herself. She is said to have been ambitious, vain, 
and overbearing, and failed to fill creditably the place 
which she so long aspired to fill ; and this failure has 
been attributed to ignorance of human nature, and 
want of self-respect. The sad fact that she was re- 
garded as insane in after-years, and was placed in an 
asylum by her own son, may go far to excuse her in 
the eyes of many who desire to be charitable in their 
judgment of a woman who was called in the troublous 
times of war, and with the sorrow of bereavement, to 
occupy the place which had been so admirably filled by 
the niece of Pres. Buchanan in a time of peace. 

" The Republican Convention of Chicago verified 
Mrs. Lincoln's prophecy of being the wife of a presi- 
dent. It assembled the 16th of June, 1860. . . . Mrs. 
Lincoln waited in her own home for the result of her 
prediction ; and when, at noon, the cannon on the pub- 
lic square announced the decision of the convention, 
breathless with excitement, she scarcely dared to ask 
the result. Her husband, in the excitement of the 
moment, did not forget her ; but, putting the telegram 
in his pocket, he remarked to his friends that there was 
a little woman on Eighth Street who had some interest 
in the matter, and walked home to gladden her heart 
with the good news. That Friday night must have been 
the very happiest of her life ; for few women have ever 
craved the position as she did, and it was hers." But 
the White House was not a place of comfort to her 
long. The death of little Willie was a heavy blow to 
both parents. " Two years of mourning outwardly, and 
perhaps a Hfetime of inward grief, succeeded Willie's 
death ; and the mother, faithful to the memory of hei 
lost child, crossed never again the guests' room in 
which, or the Green Room where, his body had lain." 



THE WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 93 

The shock of her husband's death was very great, 
and so affected her mind, doubtless, as to render her 
unfit for the cares that then devolved upon her. Her 
subsequent life has been that of a woman to whom life 
had been largely a disappointment, though she once 
attained the goal of her ambition. She travelled in 
Europe with her son Thaddeus, who afterward died . 
Mrs. Lincoln died in 1882. Closing a charitable and 
interesting sketch of her Mrs. Mary Clemmer says : — 

" They laid her beside her illustrious husband, wear- 
ing the wedding ring that for forty faithful years she 
had worn for hira, bearing the inscription he placed 
there : ' Love is eternal.' Let us hope that in its eter- 
nity she has already said to him : ' Good-morning ! ' 

" It is a credit to American manhood that the men 
who have written of Mrs. Lincoln's death have not for- 
gotten that she was the consort, honored and beloved, of 
the first martyr of their country, and, as such, passing 
swiftly by her faults, they have laid with reverent hand 
the bays of kindly honor on her exalted grave." 

Eliza IMoCardle married Andrew Johnson when she 
was seventeen, and he twenty-one, without a thought 
that he would ever reach the high position which he 
afterward filled. "It is a mistaken idea that she 
taught her husband his letters ; for in the dim shadows 
of the workshop at Raleigh, after the toil of the day 
was complete, he had mastered the alphabet, and made 
himself generally acquainted with the coiistruction of 
words and sentences. The incentive to acquire mental 
attainment was certainly enhanced when he felt the 
superiority of her acquirements ; and from that time 
his heroic nature began to discover itself. In the silent 
watches of the night, while sleep rested upon the vil- 
lage, the youthful couple studied together ; she oft- 



94 WOMEN OF THE CBNTURy 

times reading as he completed the weary task before 
him, oftener still bending over him to guide his hand 
in writing. He never had the benefit of one day's 
schooling in his hfe ; yet he acquired, by perseverance, 
the benefits denied by poverty. What a contemplation 
it must have been to those mothers [his own and his 
wife's, both widows] who watched over their children 
as they struggled together ! In that obscure village in 
the mountains [Greenville, Tenn.], three strong yet 
tender-hearted women watched over and cherished the 
budding genius of the future statesman. History, in 
preserving its record of the life and services of the 
seventeenth president of the United States, rears to 
them a noble tribute of their faithfulness." 

Mrs. Johnson always opposed any publicity being 
given to her private life ; but it is not just to woman- 
hood that she should be silently passed by. She once 
remarked that " her life had been spent at home, caring 
for her children, and practising the economy rendered 
necessary by her husband's small fortune." 

When the war began she was in the South, in feeble 
health, but was ordered to proceed northward, and, after 
days and nights of suffering and fatigue, reached Nash- 
ville. It was a perilous journey, but the heart of the 
feeble woman was strong. That heart was almost 
broken by the sudden death of her son, an army sur- 
geon, who was thrown from his horse, and killed. Then 
came the assassination of the president, and the accession 
of her husband to the chair of government. But she 
never shone as the lady of the White House. A news- 
paper correspondent wrote, " Mrs. Johnson, a confirmed 
invalid, has never appeared in society in Washington. 
Her very existence is a myth to almost every one. She 
was last seen at a party given to her grandchildren. 




MRS. U. S. GRANT. 



TBDffi WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 97 

She was seated in one of the republican court chairs, 
— a dainty affair of satin and ebony. . . . She is an 
invalid now ; but an observer would say, contemplating 
her, ' A noble woman, God's best gift to man.' " Mrs. 
Johnson shared as little as possible in the honors 
accorded to her family, as well after as during their 
stay at the White House, and gladly turned her face 
homeward, to find rest so necessary to her feeble con- 
stitution. God gave her the long repose at last, and to 
her husband also. Peace to their memory I 

Julia Dent Grant was the lady of the White House 
during centennial year. Her husband, the conquering 
general of the Union army, is the eighteenth president 
of the United States. She was born in St. Louis, Mo., 
Jan. 26, 1826. The social standing of her family may 
be inferred from the fact that her great-grandfather 
was "surveyor-general of the Colony of Maryland," her 
grandfather was " surveyor-general of the State of 
Maryland," and her father was " surveyor-general of 
Missouri." The latter early in life acquired a compe- 
tency, and retired with his family to a farm near St. 
Louis, spending the winters in the city. That farm was 
in the possession of the family more than thi-eescore 
years. The mother, Mrs. Dent, was unassuming in man- 
ner, but possessed of rare common-sense ; and her daugh- 
ters, both Mrs. Sharp and Mrs. Grant, greatly resemble 
her in personal appearance and mental characteristics. 

The youthfid Julia attended a fine select school of 
the city, and, while not remarkable as a student, yet 
acquitted herself with credit, and became accomplished 
in music, drawing, dancing, &c. She left school at the 
age of seventeen, and spent the following winter with 
her school friend, a daughter of a gentleman distin- 
guished for wealth and benevolence, coming out in 
society under the chaperonage of his wife. 



98 WOMEN OF THK CENTUBr. 

Her brother brought to his home his messmate and 
roommate at the Jefferson Barracks ; and Lieut. Grant 
obtained favor at once in the eyes of all her family 
before she had seen him. But she met him at last, and 
they were soon lovers. Their engagement lasted four 
years, young Grant in the mean time distinguishing him- 
self in the Mexican war. Four months after his return 
they were married, on Aug. 22, 1849, and dwelt quietly 
AS private citizens till his country called him to her ser- 
vice, when she nobly seconded his patriotic efforts ; and, 
when his grateful country called him to the presidential 
chair, she came with dignity to his side, where she com- 
mands the respect of all who behold her. 

She has three children now on earth, — Frederick, 
Ulysses, and Nellie (now Mrs. Sartoris). 

Mrs. Grant's sound common-sense and admirable 
tact have enabled her to bear a sudden elevation from 
comparative obscurity to a position where every act is 
liable to criticism, and to share the success of her hus- 
band, so quietly that it is evident she possesses qualities 
of mind and heart worthy of commendation and imita- 
tion. 

In person, Mrs. Grant is a little below medium in 
stature, has dark hair and eyes, is somewhat inclined to 
be stout in figure, and with dark complexion. She is 
said to dress richly, but with due regard to her complex- 
ion, age, and position. A lady who saw her at a recep- 
tion, before Gen. Grant was president, describes her 
dress " as black velvet lined with white silk, and with 
court train and flowing sleeves, with amber ornaments 
on wrist, throat, and hair," and thinks she could not have 
worn any thing more becoming. " Her manner is very 
unassuming and winning, especially to children and to 
people who feel a little embarrassment : she will put her 




MES. E. B. HAYES. 



TECB WIVES OF TTIE PRESIDENTS. 101 

self out to put such at their ease, even when dignitaries 
have to wait her pleasure for an introduction." Her 
summers are usually spent at Long Branch, N.J. ; and 
the true mother heart was shown when she declared 
that her grandchild should be born by the sea, for she 
would not risk her cliild's life for the sake of having it 
to say that her babe was born in the White House. 
Washington was a furnace ; and Long Branch was a 
summer retreat where a young mother's health would 
not be so endangered. Mrs. Grant is deserving of honor 
as a true wife and mother ; and, as in the earlier year?? 
of her married life she necessarily gave much personal 
attention to her domestic affairs, so now her various 
places of residence bear a home look such as a good 
housewife alone can give. 

The nation has no reason to be ashamed of the wife 
of its centennial president ; and the women of the 
century may well hold in high esteem one who regards 
duty as paramount, and who honors her position as first 
lady in the nation by a pure, Christian life. 

The wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes is espe- 
cially known as the noble woman who favored temper- 
ance so far as to give the sanction of her social position 
and the whole weight of her social influence to that 
cause, while in the White House, even to the extent of 
banishing the intoxicating cup from the social gatherings 
over which she presided. So greatly was her example 
prized that the thousands of women in our land con 
nected with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 
procured a full-length portrait of the much-esteemed 
lady and framed it with great elegance, so that it might 
adorn the White House, and thus bear to posterity the" 
estimate in which Mr?. Hayes and h*^r temperance careei* 
was held. 



102 WOMEN OF THE CENTURA. 

Lucy W. Hayes was born in Chillicothe, Ohio. Hei 
father, Dr. Webb, died during her infancy, and her 
mother then removed with her family to Delaware, Ohio. 
Here she studied in the Oliio Wesleyan University, recit- 
ing with her brothers, their mother having taken rooms 
in the college for the benefit of her children. That 
mother's influence is said to have been wonderfully ex- 
cellent and powerful. Her rare common sense was the 
inheritance of her daughter. Says Miss F. E. Willard : — 

" Two years at the Ohio Wesleyan University were 
followed by several years of study in the Cincinnati 
Wesleyan Female College, of which Rev. Mr. and Mrs. 
P. B. Wilbur had the management. Many of the no- 
blest women of the West, foremost in missionary, tem- 
perance, and other Christian work, were graduated hei-e. 
Under the influence of these gifted educators and their 
successors, the daughters of Ohio have matured charac- 
ters full of the benignant strength which discipline of 
mind can only give when Christ in the heart tempera 
and mellows the clear light it has imparted. One of 
these students, a life-long friend of Mrs. Hayes, and fore- 
most among the women philanthropists of our day, writes 
as follows : — 

" ' Lucy Webb was a first-class student. I was a 
member of the same class in botany and other studies 
with her, and I have reason to recall my feeling of min- 
gled annoyance and admiration, as our teacher, Miss De 
Forest, would turn from us older girls to Miss Webb, 
who sat at the head of the class, and get from her a clear 
analysis of the flower under discussion, or the correct 
transposition of some involved line of poetry. Some- 
what of this accuracy was doubtless due to the fact that 
she had been trained in the severe drill of the Ohio Wes- 
leyan University. She remained in the Ladies' College 
of Cincinnati until she completed its course of study. 




MRS. JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



THE Y^rrvES OF THE PRESIDENTS. lOS^ 

' ' While yet in her teens, she met Rutherford B. 
Hayes, who, after his graduation at Garabier, Ohio, had 
opened a law off.ce in Cincinnati.' " 

In 1852 they were married. Through all the progress 
of her husband, in military and civil life, she was a help- 
meet. As the wife of a Union general and as a govern- 
or's wife, Mrs. Hayes was not only conspicuous, but emi- 
nently worthy of esteem. She ruled as a republican 
queen in the White House, her receptions there without 
wine provoking remark, but showing her to be true as 
steel to her principles. She retired to more private life 
at the expiration of her husband's presidential term, 
with the esteem of all, and the warm love and admiration 
of her sisters in the temperance ranks, who were proud 
of the victory which the calm dignity and decision of 
character manifested by this Christian matron had se- 
cured. Colonel Conwell, in his " Lives of the Presi- 
dents," says, " Not one of all the wives of our Presidents 
was more universally admired, reverenced, and beloved 
than is Mrs. Hayes, and no one has done more than she 
to reflect honor upon American womanhood." 

LuCRETiA R. Garfield followed Mrs. Hayes into the 
White Plouse, as the wife of the next President, Gen. 
James A. Garfield. The whole nation bears her tenderly 
and compassionately on its heart, on account of her 
great sorrow in the terrible sufferings and untimely 
death of her husband, the second martyred President? 
Says a reliable monthly : — 

" It is said that Mr. Gurfield's domestic relations werd 
of the happiest kind ; that his wife was not to him 
merely his housekeeper and the mother of his children^ 
but an intelligent, congenial companion, who helped him 
in his struggle with the world and contributed to his 
1 Phrenological Journal, November. 1881. 



106 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

great success. The daughter of an Ohio farmer, Lucre- 
tia Rudolph is described as being at seventeen 'a quiet, 
thoughtful girl of singularly sweet and refined disposi- 
tion fond of study and reading, and possessing a warm 
heart and a mind capable of steady growth.' At this 
time she was attending the Geauga Academy at Chester, 
and there James A. Garfield, a boy of eighteen, who 
was working his own way toward an education, met her. 
Three years later the two met at the Eclectic Institute, 
at Hiram, Portage County, Ohio, where Garfield was 
still the hard-working student. A mutual attachment 
sprang up between them, which culminated in their mar- 
riage in the fall of 1858, Mr. Garfield being then teacher 
of Latin and Greek. . . . And the farmer's daughter 
was well fitted to be a teacher's wife, as she had acquired 
a knowledge of Latin, Greek, German, and French, and 
was well informed in mathematics and general litera- 
ture, being able to assist her husband in the preparation 
of his lectures." 

She had also been a teacher herself in Cleveland and 
elsewhere. Seven children were born to them, of whom 
five survived to become inmates, with their parents, of 
the White House, a place which they remember only 
with sadness, for there the mother was ill almost to 
death, and there the assassinated father lingered in ag- 
ony till he was borne to Elberon, where he died. The 
details of his assassination will long remain fresh in the 
public mind, and the admiratic i which his devoted wife 
won as his faithful nurse, in th jse dark hours, will never 
be forgotten. When the end came, — and even the 
Queen of England sent her message of sympathy and her 
floral token of respect, — the whole country followed her 
with prayers and tears to his resting-place in Cleveland, 
and many added to their other tokens of sympathy large 



THE WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 107 

contributions in nooney, so that Mrs. Garfield should not 
lack for the means to educale the children of the la- 
mented President, or to make comfortable the declining 
years of his beloved mother, Mrs. Eliza Garfield, to 
whom he owed so much, inheriting from her his elo- 
quence and love of study, trained by her in the path of 
integrity and encouraged by her in all his laudable ef- 
forts to be something more than a canal boatman. If 
this chapter was devoted to the mention of the moth- 
ers, as well as wives of the Presidents, there would be 
many pages in reference to " the little white - haired 
mother," whom James Abram Garfield kissed when he 
turned from the Bible he had kissed as he took the oath 
of inauguration ; the mother with whom every heart 
sympathized as she sat in her country home at Mentor, 
Ohio, and listened for news from her suffering " boy." 
When those solemn midnight bells waked the nation to 
the knowledge that their President had " put on immor- 
tality," millions of sympathetic hearts turned towards 
his aged mother, as well as to his heroic wife ; and the 
names of Eliza and Lucretia Garfield are now " house- 
hold words " in every Christian home throughout the 
land. 

There remains at this writing (1882) but one more 
name to mention, and that is the name of Ella L. 
Arthur, the wife of the Yice-President, Chester A. 
Arthur, who succeeded to the chair of state so sadly 
vacated by President Garfield. Though she died previ- 
ous to his nomination as Vice-President, and, of course, 
never occupied the White House, yet she is none the 
less to be mentioned among the wives of the Presidents. 

Mrs. Arthur was the daughter of Lieutenant-Com- 
mander Herndon of the United States Navy. She was 
married to Chester A. Arthur in 1853, and died in New 



108 WOMEN OF TELE CENTURY. 

York city, January 12, 1880, leaving two r.liildreu, a 
son and a daughter. She is spoken of by Colonel Con- 
well as " a most excellent example of all that is sweet- 
est and best in the life of American women." ^ Had she 
lived to have shared the whole public life of her husband, 
she would doubtless have graced the White House and 
Washington society like her predecessors. That in spirit 
she is with him there may be supposed, when the " Chi- 
cago News" informs us that " Mrs. Arthur's room in her 
beautiful New York mansion, in which she died, has 
never been disturbed ; her needle is still threaded and 
sticking in a bit of delicate embroidery in her work-bas- 
ket undisturbed ; nor will her husband allow any one to 
change the room in any of its furniture arrangements. 
There is the little rocker beside the standard work-bas- 
ket, and the little nigllgi crocheted slippers. There 
stands her desk, with the ink dried on her pearl-handled 
pen, which she had hastily put aside from some interrup- 
tion, never to use again on earth. Her favored books 
are placed in a tiny case, with a marker in one of them, 
just as she left it. On the table are placed each morn 
ing, by orders of the President, a bunch of her favorite 
flowers. Even her favorite perfumes are in the toilet 
bottles at her dressing-case, and in the wardrobe hang 
her dresses. This room is bright and sunny, her former 
maid keeping it neat, and arranging the flowers in the 
vases, and attending the canaries in the window, but 
never altering the places of the furniture, books, etc. 
This room is a place where the President takes much 
comfort in reading and meditation, and they who know 
say that the bit of needlework has been many times wet 
with tears by the husband." 

^ Lives of the Presidents, cage 599. 



THE WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 109 

On the second day of June in 1886, after having occupied 
the Presidential chair a little more than a year as a bachelor, 
Grover Cleveland, the first Democratic President for nearly a 
quarter of a century, took to himself a wife. He chose the 
daughter of his former law partner, Oscar Folsom, Esq., of 
Buffalo, N. y. 

There was great disparity of years, but, it is said, that from 
the lady's childhood there had always been a warm affection 
between guardian and ward, and to many the marriage seemed 
but the fitting close of long-continued interest on the part of 
both. 

Mrs. Frances Folsom Cleveland was born in Buffalo, 
July 21, 18G4. 

The first year of her earthly life witnessed the dawn of peace 
in our land after the sad, internecine strife which desolated so 
many homes both North and South. She could thus have 
known nothing of the bitterness and disloyalty, or of the 
patriotism and loyalty which stirred the nation during that 
period of war, except as she heard it mentioned, or read of it 
in later years. She did not live in the midst of it. Hence in 
being called to stand beside the head of the nation on the occa- 
sions of social courtesy, she could easily ignore the distinctions 
of party and politics, and in the disi>ensing of her cordial 
greetings could easily know no North and no South. That she 
was born the year before the war closed may therefore have 
been her first important preparation for her place among the 
wives of the Presidents. She certainly won many hearts with- 
out distinction of locality, and those who called upon the Presi- 
dent were not more gratified to take his hand, than they were, 
to receive the winning smile of the bride whose grace and 
beauty were in strong contrast to his sedate appearance and 
JefFersonian simplicity of manners. 

The erudite sister of the President, Miss Rose Elizabeth 
Cleveland, presided over the hospitalities of the White House 
till the younger lady came as its mistress. Miss Cleveland's 
quiet dignity and great good sense enabled her to fill acceptably 



110 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

her place in the home of her bachelor brother. One testifies, 
of the sister who had been previously known and respected as 
teacher, lecturer, and author, that "Her life had been too 
serious and practical to fit her for the fashionable vortex of the 
capital, but she is a lady, has strong individuality, good con- 
versational powers, and is far from being commonplace. She 
took care to keep up the cuisine, the floral decorations, and the 
entertainments. Slie held weekly receptions and gave frequent 
lunch parties, at which, under her lead, there was much bril- 
liant talk and sparkling wit." * 

But she was only mistress of the White House for about a 
year, and then she gracefully stepped aside for one to whom 
the President of the United States extended heart and hand. 

As Lydia L. Gordon tells us in her deeply interesting book 
entitled, "From Lady Washington to Mrs. Cleveland," the 
sister had all along anticipated giving way to the wife. Miss 
Gordon says (page 437), "Miss Cleveland knew Avhat the 
public did not know — kn'3w that her own reign was to be short 
— that a young girl in Europe, 'the sweetest in the world,' she 
called her, was coming to reign as legitimate mistress over the 
White House. 

"In the years gone by, when the President had been only a 
city lawyer, he had had a partner who was a genial, generous, 
whole-souled, companionable man, and his handsome wife had 
charming manners. Many an hour had the President whiled 
away in their hospitable home. There was a blue-eyed, viva- 
cious little daughter who often climbed upon his knee and 
called him Uncle Cleve — to-day she calls him Mr. President. 

"At a time when mother and child were away on a visit, Mr, 
Folsom met with a fatal accident. The tender and sympathetic 
nature of the President made him assiduous in his attentions 
to lighten the affliction and attend to their interests. 

"The girl had been taught in Madame Brecker's kinder- 
garten, the Central School, Buffalo, and afterwards went to the 
High School at Medina, where her mother had gone upon the 
*"From Lady Washington to Mrs. Cleveland." — p. 437. 





FEAJSTCES FOLSOM CLEVELAND. 



THE "WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 113 

death of her husband. * * * * She entered the Sophomore 
class of Wells College upon the merits of her school certificates. 
Every week came a hamper of flowers from the gubernatorial 
mansion at Albany, and upon her graduation, from the con- 
servatories of the White House. The interest and fondness of 
the President for the beautiful Miss Folsom was well known. 
She stood with her mother in the group behind him on the day 
when he was officially notified of his nomination ; and the two 
also spent a few days at the Executive Mansion after the inau- 
guration. * * « * The first rumor of the real state of things 
was by a telegram sent from Washington the evening Miss 
Folsom was about to sail for Europe. * * * Now and 
then came a rumor from Paris that there was a beautiful trous- 
seau preparing for Miss Folsom, and that it was to be worn in 
the White House. If she were the fiancee of the President, 
Minister McLane thought it incumbent upon him to do her 
honor, but the girl would not be lionized in advance, and only 
went about in a quiet way to see sights and do her dainty 
shopping. 

In May she sailed for America. Rumors had thickened as 
to the President's intentions, and when the steamer was due, 
his private seci-etary, Colonel Lamont, came and outwitted the 
newspaper men by quietly taking the party on board a little 
steamer held in readiness for the purpose." 

The death of her grandfather, which occurred while Miss 
Folsom was on her way home, doubtless changed the plans 
previously made, and it was decided that the marriage cere- 
mony should take place in the White House, with but little 
delay. Hence on the 2d of June, 1886, that lovely Avard be- 
came her guardian's bride, 

"It was a very private wedding, only the families of the 
bridal pair, and the Cabinet members, with their wives, being 
present." 

Of course the papers of the day were full as possible of the 
details of the wedding, but there was little to tell, since the 
recent death of a near relative, and the quiet tastes of the parties 



114 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

most concerned, led to a ceremony devoid of ostentation, and 
much more private than the general public might have wished. 

Miss Gordon's estimate of the personal attractiveness of Mrs. 
Cleveland, is given in her book, as follows : — 

"Mrs. Cleveland's pictures are everywhere, but not one does 
her justice ; the gleam of the eye and the radiant smile are 
wanting. In repose, you say she is very pretty ; if she smiles, 
you say she is beautiful ; if she takes you by the hand and gives 
you her cordial greeting, you feel for the moment she has given 
you a piece of her heart, and you are very sure she has won 
your own. 

"She has a tall, girlish figure, and there is a girlish delicacy 
in her pale, transparent skin, touched with a roseate gleam, 
her eyes are sapphire blue, fringed Avith lashes so thick and 
long they look almost black ; and the eyebrows are heavy, 
delicately arched, very dark, and nearly meet ; the broad, well- 
formed brow stamps her intellectually, and is shaded by fluffy, 
abundant waves of chestnut hair ; her lips are full and red, 
and the artist, Ammi Farnham, declares that she has the 
most beautiful mouth ever seen." 

Her graceful dignity has been remarked by all as she has 
fulfilled the duties of social leadership which have devolved 
upon her. 

To quote once moi'e from the above-mentioned writer, whose 
admiration of the President's bride is very evident: "Mrs. 
Cleveland, the youngest among the wives of the Presidents, 
seems the soul of the administration ; she has become an in- 
tegral part of it by her sweet, womanly ways, which subdue 
even the bitterest political opponents ; she has but to show her 
gracious presence and winsome manners, to capture every 
heart and bridge every pitfall. 

"It is a comparatively easy thing for a beautiful woman to 
captivate men, but to please women is quite another thing, and 
requires a different sort of talent, something in which a beau- 
tiful face is not the chief factor. The women do admire her 
grace and beauty, but it is her sincerity, naturalness and cor- 



THE WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 115 

diality, that has won all hearts. * * * * Mrs. Cleveland 
laughingly turns from politics ; only reproaches wine-bibbers 
by her own abstinence ; is a religious woman, and goes about 
her duties in a gladsome sort of a way, as if the Master's ways 
were ways of pleasantness." 

These words of a lady writer, who had probably much op- 
portunity of knowing the characteristics of the young mistress 
of the White House, will doubtless have many a hearty "Amen" 
from the ladies who, on the occasion of the "International 
Council of Women," held in Washington in 1888, were gra- 
ciously received by President and Mrs. Cleveland, one bright 
afternoon, at the White House. As I recall that March day, 
the first on which the sun had shone during the week of the 
Council, there arises a pleasant mingling in my memory of the 
long procession of notable women, the thronged parlors, the 
kindly greetings, the beautiful flowers and the cordial smile of 
the President's young wife — Frances Folsom Cleveland. 

It is said that she was disappointed at the non-election of 
her husband for a second term. If that be so, it is but natural, 
and it certainly has not led her by word or act to manifest any 
change of ladylike dignity for the pettish manners of a spoiled 
child. She will doubtless retire to private life with the un- 
diminished respect of the American people who have watched 
her career with natural and somewhat careful interest. 

She has shown a wonderful measure of discretion, and even 
practiced self-denial, in order to conform to the standard which 
seemed to be set up by public opinion for "the first lady of the 
land." In proof of this we have a sprightly paragraph in a 
New York paper, written by a Washington correspondent, 
which it is but fair to give : — 

"As a schoolgirl Mrs. Cleveland was extravagantly fond of 
dancing, and her classmates have told of her excitement and 
keen enjoyment of some dancing parties they attended together. 
As soon as she left school she went to Europe, and, purposely 
avoiding all social attentions there, had no chance to indulge 
in her favorite amusement until she came back to be married. 



116 WOMEN OF Th£ CENTURY. 

Dancing has not taken place at any White House entertain- 
ments since the cotillions given by Nellie Grant, and until this 
winter Mrs. Cleveland has not attended any entertainments 
here where dancing was a part of the amusement. For the 
first time she has attended anything but dinner' parties in Cab- 
inet houses in the formal evening hours, and her presence at 
the Army and Navy ball was an innovation of this season, too. 
The young ladies who have visited Mrs. Cleveland here have 
often told of her mock envy and despair when they were dress- 
ing to go to balls or germans, and she was doomed to stay at 
home and live up to the dignity of her White House seclusion. 
Mrs. Cleveland used to tell those schoolgirl friends that she 
*was just dying for one good dance,' and any one can believe 
it and sympathize with that active young woman, suddenly tied 
down to the gait and daily rule of the middle-aged and elderly 
matrons who had preceded her in the Executive home." 

In a letter to the Independent, a writer pictures what she 
termed Mrs. Cleveland's farewell to the White House recep- 
tions, in these words : — 

"At the close of the reception, people waited to see the 
presidential party go upstairs, instead of going off as one does 
from an ordinary reception, leaving a weary host and hostess 
still standing by the entrance door. The little procession 
passed through a line of people in the inner hall and then up 
the private staircase, broad and handsome, and with one long 
landing which commands the length of the hall below. In the 
middle of this landing, Mrs. Cleveland stopped, turned and 
looked down at the bright picture beloAv. All eyes were turned 
toward her with a feeling that she was taking a farewell look 
over a brilliant scene, where she had presided, and Avhich she 
had enjoyed for three years. All around in the throng arose 
whispers, 'Isn't she lovely? Too bad it is the last time. She 
ought to have been re-elected' — and then she moved on, up the 
stairs, as if she had made her farewell. I think it was an un- 
conscious act on her part ; she turned to look after some one 



THE WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 117 

who was to join the party upstairs, but it came to be, involun- 
tarily a farewell." 

The New York Tribune, of March 5, 1889, in speaking of 
the departures from the White House for the capitol, on the 
morning of the inauguration, says : — 

"As the President and the President-elect drove out from 
nnder the portico, Mrs. Cleveland and her mother, Mrs. Fol- 
som, appeared alone at one of the White House windows. 
Those of the party who could see the President's wife lifted 
their hats, and Mrs. Cleveland smiled brightly in return. Until 
the last carriage got away, she could be seen watching the 
procession of carriages, her face lit up with good-natured in- 
terest in the spectacle. No doubt she had contemplated many 
times in the last three months that final function of state in 
which her husband would figure, and which was now just be- 
ginning. But in her manner at the window, at least, no trace 
of regret was visible, and she turned a smiling face on the last 
guest she was to see depart from the White House." 

When the hour arrived for her own departure from the 
White House, it is said that she and her mother bade farewell 
to each domestic, and as the young mistress of the Executive 
Mansion took their hands and said good-by, every domestic re- 
sponded with tears and sobs, so great Avas the affection inspired 
by her in the hearts of those who Avere cheerfully subordinate 
to the will of the young wife of the President, They loved her 
whom they served, and that love is shared by a large part of 
the American people, who wish her happiness and peace in aU 
thb years to come. 

When Mrs. Cleveland left the White House on March 4, 
1889, the wife of the next President came into possession of 
the Executive Mansion as its honored mistress. In a few 
hours President Benjamin Harrison was taking his first dinner 
there as master of the situation, and his comely wife was, as 
for long years she had been, his acceptable companion. She 
is a grandmother, and her children and grandchildren, too, 
were there. In the place of the bachelor who came to this 



118 "WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

mansion in 1885, there may now be seen the happy grand- 
father, still in the vigor of maturity, and in place of the maiden 
sister presiding, is the matronly wife and mother and grand- 
mother. 

Caroline Scott Harrison is a daughter of the Rev. John 
Witherspoon Scott, D. D., now a venerable gentleman of 
eighty-nine years, whose snowy locks adorn a noble head, and 
whose life has been one of usefulness and honor. He is a son 
of a Presbyterian preacher, who was one of the Pennsylvania 
pioneers, and his grandfather. Col. John Scott, was a Revolu- 
tionary patriot. Dr. Scott was graduated from Yale in 1824, 
was a professor in several universities, and founded a college 
for women at Oxford, Ohio. After long years of teaching and 
preaching he is now clerk in the Pension Office, at AVashing- 
ton, residing with a widowed daughter, Mrs. Lord ; and no 
doubt rejoicing to behold his daughter Carrie the wife of the 
President of the United States. Four generations at the White 
House table has probably never before been seen, but now it 
will be, doubtless, a frequent event, on occasions when the 
little ones are favored to dine with their seniors. Once more, 
all over the land, there is rejoicing because there is family life 
at the White House in all its phases of love and activity. 

"Nellie Ely," the spicy writer of the New York World, 
called upon Mrs. Harrison previous to the election of her hus- 
band, and gave a graphic picture of the lady in her account of 
the visit ; too graphic and complimentary, and doubtless too 
truthful, not to be quoted entire. She says : — 

"I had waited several days for Mrs. Harrison's return from 
Put-in-Bay, and it was with some trepidation I called the next 
morning, fearing she would be too weary to see any visitors. 
However, there was no hesitancy about admitting me, no 
mysterious running about as if they had something to hide. 
The woman showed me into the parlor and returned almost 
immediately to say that Mrs. Harrison would be down in a 
few moments. 




MRS. BENJAMIN HARRISON. 



THE WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 121 

" 'Mamie,' I heard a clear, musical voice call, 'come take 
the baby ; I want to go down-stairs.' 

" 'Yes, mamma,' and a slender, girlish figure, in a neat 
morning gown, ran lightly past the door upstairs. I heard the 
soft rustle of skirts, and then a little lady with large, brown 
eyes and grayish hair stood before me. 

" 'I am Mrs. Harrison,' she announced, and held out her 
hand and looked at me inquiringly, while I told the nature of 
my visit. 

" 'I think it is rather embarrassing to ask one to talk of 
themselves,' she said, with a smile. 'You would get a better 
story, either favorably or otherwise, by going to some one who 
knows me ; yet if I can give you anything that will help you, 
I shall be most happy.' 

" 'I was afraid that you might be too tired from your trip to 
see visitors this morning.' 

" 'I am not in the least tired,' she asserted, with a bright 
smile. 'It Avas a trip for rest, and has been of benefit to Mr. 
Harrison. I am proud that I have a great deal of vitality. I 
am never ill, and since the nomination I have not had an hour, 
I can say, to rest. A little baby girl has come to my daughter 
since then, and I have had the entire care of them both and of 
my grandson Benjamin added to my other duties. With it all 
I am Avell and happy. I have always taught myself not to 
fuss and worry ; that it only increases discomfort and never 
deducts from it ; so I think that the secret of my perfect health.' 

" 'With all these duties it must be necessary to have a house- 
keeper,' I suggested. 

" 'No, indeed,' she laughed, merrily. 'That's what I never 
had. When I was a gii'l my dear old mother made me learn 
to work. It used to make me angry. "I will never do this 
when I am married," I would assert, petulantly. "Very well," 
mother would answer, quietly, "the knowledge will be of no 
trouble if you don't, and if you are ever compelled to, it will 
be invaluable." So I was taught everything, and became 
quite an expert, especially as a baker. My bread was beauti- 



122 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

fill. I don't know how nice it would be now, foi' it is years 
since I have made any. My knowledge has served me well in 
making me a skillful housekeeper. I have always attended to 
my own household matters and think it a great pleasure. I 
often get up at six o'clock in order to go to market. I always 
take Benjamin, my grandson, with me, because the early morn- 
ing ride does him good. Do my own marketing? Why, cer- 
tainly, always ; how else could I expect to have things to please 
me?' 

" 'AVill you tell me of your girlhood days?' 

" 'Yes, they were my happy ones,' she said, feelingly. 'I 
was born in Oxford, Ohio. My father. Dr. John W. Scott, 
was professor of the Miami University at the time of my birth, 
and Avas afterwards President of the female college in the same 
town, which position he held at the time of my marriage. I 
received my education at the seminary there and was a happy 
girl. We village girls were very simple in our wants then. 
We had driving and sleighing parties, but we did not dance. 
It was considered a great sin there, but we managed to have 
just as much fun without. We would put on our newly- 
starched calico dresses and sun-bonnets and we were grand and 
content. Isn't it wonderful how the lives of girls have 
changed ? Imagine any girl during her graduating year wear- 
ing a sun-bonnet, yet we all did so, and were proud of them 
when newly-laundered.' 

" 'Where did you meet Gen. Hai'rison?' 

" 'At Oxford. He was a student at the university and I at 
the seminary. We were friends and we were graduated the 
same year. When he was twenty years old and I almost that, 
Ave were married. So we started in life young, and we have 
never been sorry.' " 

It is not supposable that Nellie Bly gave the exact language, 
but the stamp of truth is upon the thoughts expressed. Mrs. 
Harrison's life has been one of usefulness and good Avill. In 
reply to the query, "What family have you?" came the answer 
(as per the World) : — 



THE WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 



123 



" 'I have a son in Montana. He is married to the daugh- 
ter of Senator Saunders, the old War Governor. My son has 
a cattle ranch and is somewhat of a journalist. He has one 
child, Marthena, a little daughter. I have a daughter, Mrs. 
Mary — we call her Mamie — McKee. She lives here with us, 
and her husband is a tradesman in a boot and shoe house in 
this city. They were married when Mr. Harrison was in 
Washington, so we had them take charge of the house for us, 
and since our return they have lived with us. My daughter 
has two children, Benjamin Harrison McKee, eighteen months 
old, who is the ninth Benjamin Harrison directly down, and 
the baby, Mary Lodge McKee, who is but eight weeks old, but 
is a jolly, plump little fairy.' 

" 'What is your regular routine of the day?' 

" 'It does not differ from any one's,' she said. 'I get up at 
6, do my marketing, breakfast at 7.30, bathe and dress the 
babies and have a romp with Benjamin, lunch at one and have 
dinner at six. Except in the summer months I devote two 
mornings weekly to painting lessons, and one morning to a 
literature class, of which I am a member. By the way, this 
is a very literary city. We have three literary classes as well 
as literary clubs ; and we have a Woman's Club, which is most 
entertaining and instructive. Besides the Woman's Club we 
have the Fortnightly Club and the Merrill Literary Club, 
named in honor of our teacher. Miss Katharine Merrill, a re- 
markably gifted woman. Our success is due to her teaching.' 

"In addition to all this," adds the reporter, "Mrs. Harrison 
is quite a musician, understanding music thoroughly and being 
very fond of it. And now I have not told you Avhat she looks 
like, but as her ftice is already familiar to the reading public 
there is not much to tell. Suppose I describe her as she looked 
the morning I called on her. She is small, probably not more 
than five feet two, and has a plump figure. Her hands and 
feet are baby-like in size, and her little dimpled fingers display 
a marriage ring and three diamonds. She wore a plain gray 
cloth skirt and plaited jacket, belted at the waist. Her sleeves 



124 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

were tight and jilain, showing the outlines of a finely-molded 
arm, and enameled gold bracelets clasped the fair wrists. Her 
eyes are large and a soft brown and her hair contrasts beauti- 
fully, being gray. Her mouth is the right size for beauty. 
She wears a soft, fluffy bang and her hair coiled low on her 
neck. Her pictures do not do her justice, as they cannot show 
how her face lights up, how the soul comes into her eyes and 
how the expression foretells every thought. She is a brilliant 
conversationalist, and indeed a most cultivated as well as a 
beautiful woman. 

"Mrs. Harrison is devoted to the babies in her household. 
Little Benjamin is her treasure. She pets everything that 
comes her way, from her husband down to Dash, the collie, 
which lies snapping flies in the sunshine. She carries sugar 
and apples in her pockets for her horse. It rubs its nose grate- 
fully and aflectionately against her shoulder and begs for more 
as well as gives thanks for that received. She did own a 
mocking bird that followed her about the house and perched 
on her shoulder when she sat down, and the neighbors do say 
it could almost talk, and that the understanding was perfect be- 
tween them. It died not long since, so it is not mentioned 
now. A beautiful young fawn, a gift to grandson Benjamin, 
is just now the newest pet. 

"Mrs. Harrison is a diligent and studious reader, but does 
not find much interest in the novels of to-day. She is a mem- 
ber of the Presbyterian Church, and until she removed to 
Washington taught a class in Sunday-school. She is also one 
of the most useful and tireless managers of the Orphan Asy- 
lum. She is passionately fond of music and has quite a bril- 
liant performer in her daughter, Mrs. McKee. Moreover, 
with all her brilliancy, Mrs. Harrison enjoys a good joke, and 
can tell in*an inimitable manner very funny anecdotes. 
****** 

" 'I lived in Indianapolis all alone with my two children 
while Mr. Harrison was in the war,' said Mrs. Harrison, after 
showing me around. 'Those .vere my sad days, but I forced 



THE WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 125 

myself to be cheerful, and looked after my home and little 
babies until merciful Providence restored my husband to me.' 

" 'Carrie Scott, as Mrs. Harrison was known in youth, was 
a beautiful girl,' said Mrs. Miller, a neighbor, who has been 
acquainted with Mrs. Harrison for many years. 'She was 
always well-bred, has a lovely disposition, makes friends every- 
where and changes in fortune never leave any mark on her. 
She is always dignified and yet cordial. She never holds her- 
self aloof and is very sympathetic. I have never known her 
to grow impatient, and she meets every one who is anxious to 
see her. She is very discreet, and her worst enemies, if she 
has any, could find no fault. One beautiful thing in her dis- 
position is charity for human faults. She always speaks soft- 
ly of the erring and finds excuses for them. As for dressing, 
she prefers plain gowns and keeps to quiet colors — dark shades 
for street, and white, pearl and gray for evenings. She dresses 
becomingly and properly and as befits her society ; outside of 
that she does not care. She does not like much jewelry and 
especially dislikes a display of large diamonds.' " 

A writer in Frank Leslie's Magazine, says : "Both Mrs. 
Harrison and Mrs. Morton, in taking their places at the head 
of society in the national capital, as the wives respectively of 
the President and Vice-President of the United States, are 
welcomed back to a social environment in which they have 
previously shone, and with whose usages and personnel they 
are perfectly familiar. Mrs. Harrison, accomplished, and of 
artistic tastes, in character at once dignified and sympathetic, a 
leader in social and charitable enterprises, won a high place in 
the social life of Washington during General Harrison's term 
in the Senate. She now takes possession of the White House 
seconded by her bright and charming daughter, Mrs. McKee, 



126 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

who, Avith her two cliildren, is to forna a part of the Presiden- 
tial household. The two ladies visited New York last month 
on a shopping tour, and feminine rumor has it that Mrs. Har- 
rison will wear a dress of splendid black silk velvet with a 
very long train. Around her throat will be a broad, black 
velvet band clasped with a diamond star, Mrs. Harrison's 
handsome gray hair will be worn high in puffs, Avith crimps 
upon the forehead and an aigrette of black and Avhite heron 
plumes set amid the puffs," 

At the inauguration of President Benjamin Harrison on 
March 4, 1889, the New York Tribune spoke of the aged 
father of Mrs, Harrison, still hale and hearty, as sitting near 
her "the object of her care and attention throughout." At 
Mrs. Harrison's right was seated Russell Harrison, and thus 
there were present the representatives of three generations in 
the family. "Mrs. Harrison wore a cloth gown of dark sage 
color, embroidered with black silk. A wrap to match, and a 
bonnet wholly of black and gold effects, completed the simple 
but effective costume. Mrs. McKee, the President's daughter, 
wore a cloth costume of light olive shade, the skirt having 
panels of white moire and white ball fringe. A dainty little 
wrap with 'a love of a bonnet,' matched the gown. Mrs. 
Russell Harrison's gown was dark red cloth, with trimmings 
of black silk and Astrachan fur in applique. The panels of 
the skirt, the waist trimmings and the wrap Avere of this rich 
design in silk and fur. A bonnet of black and red with red 
roses, made up the bright and pretty costume. * * * * 
The toilets, and flowers carried by many of the ladies, gave 
a good deal of effective coloring to the gallery. Mrs. Harri- 
son carried a large bouquet of lilics-of-the-valley ; Mrs, 



THE WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 127 

McKee, La France roses ; Mrs. Russell Harrison, violets and 
pink I'oses ; Mrs. Morton did not cany flowers." 

"Feminine rumor" did not correctly prefigure the appearance 
of Mrs. Harrison at the inauguration ball, but the Tribune 
thus refers to what it calls 

The Triumph of American Gowns. 

"The toilets of the President's family and the Vice-Presi- 
dent's wife were of exceptional elegance. The gowns of Mrs. 
Harrison, Mrs. McKee and Mrs. Morton were of truly Ameri- 
can stamp in manufacture, material and makeup. The beauti- 
ful fabrics of which they were made were manufactured at the 
Auburn Silk Mills, New York. The superb fringes, passe- 
menteries of gold, silver, pearl and amber beads were the work 
of American skill in New York, and the goAvns were made up 
by New York artists, who certainly surpassed themselves in 
the artistic beauty of the gowns. Mrs. Han-ison and Mrs. 
Morton are very proud of their genuine American gowns. 
The gown of the President's wife as she appeared in ball toilet 
was a silver gray faille brocaded in gold color burr oak leaves, 
the design of Miss Williamson, an Indiana artist. The court 
train is of brocade, and the open panels on the front and sides 
were of apricot pink crepe covered with exquisite cream lace. 
The V-pointed neck, back and front, is filled in with amber 
and silver crystal beaded net close up to the band about the 
throat. Elbow sleeves are finished Avith the crystal fringe and 
passementerie, and the panels of the skirt are bordered with 
this rich trimming. The combination of gray and yellow of 
the faille and silver and gold of the trimming is most effective 
and beautiful. 

"Mrs. McKee's gown was a pearl satin, brocaded in the 



128 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

yellow golden rod, also designed by Miss "Williamson from the 
Indiana prairie golden rod. The waist and court train were 
of the brocade, the front of the skirt was of grape-green velvet, 
the waist and sleeves also having the velvet. The pointed 
neck was filled with amber bead network, and the elaborate 
trimmings were of amber and pearl fringes and passemen- 
teries. It would be difficult to make choice of beauty between 
the two gowns worn by the President's wife and his daughter." 
Yet while the nation is gratified that the wife of President 
Harrison is becomingly and fittingly arrayed, it is obvious that 
the great source of satisfaction in reference to Mrs. Harrison, 
is the fact that she is a woman whom, in all the domestic and 
social relations, and especially as a home-maker, all may re- 
gard as a peerless example to the women of America. 




CHAPTER IV. 



WOMEN LEADERS IN SOCIETY. 

Martha Jefferson Randolph — Mrs. Donelson — Mrs. Andrew Jackson, 
jun. — Angelica Van Buren — Abigail Fillmore — Harriet Lane — 
Martha Patterson — Mary Stover — Sarah Livingston Jay — Elizabeth 
Temple Winthrop — Mercy Warreu — Hannah Winthrop, &c. 

" So the gay lady, with excessive care, 
Borrows the pride of land, of sea, and air : 
Furs, pearls, and plumes the glittering thing displays, 
Dazzles our eyes, and easy hearts betrays." 

Gay's Rural Sports. 

"She maketh herself coverings of tapestry: her clothing is silk and purple." — 
Prov. xxxi. 32. 



AMONG the valuable books which Mrs. E. F. Ellet 
has prepared, there is one entitled " The Queens 
of American Society," to whose name exception was 
taken ; which exception she meets in her Preface to the 
book in the following manner : " Some friends have 

129 



130 "WOMEN OF THE CENTUKiJ. 

objected, in advance, to the title of this volume, on thp 
ground that the term ' queens,' as applied to the subjects, 
seems out of place in the society of a republic. But, 
If we call to mind how continually and universally the 
expression is used in ordinary conversation, it must be 
conceded that no other would do as well. We are all 
accustomed to hear of any leading lady, that she is a 
* perfect queen,' the ' queen of society,' a ' reigning 
belle,' the ' queen ' of the occasion, &c. The phrase is 
in every one's mouth, and no one is misled by it. The 
sway of beauty and fashion, too, is essentially royal : 
there is nothing republican about it. Every belle, every 
leader of the ton^ is despotic in proportion to her power ; 
and the quahty of imperial authority is absolutely 
inseparable from her state. I maintain, therefore, that 
no title is so just and appropriate to the women illus- 
trated in this work as that of ' queens.' " 

Mrs. Ellet has a right to her opinion : so has the 
author of this book to hers ; and they so differ, that 
the title of this chapter mentions not " queens," but 
" women leaders," in society. And, in order to be true 
to my own convictions, I must protest against the too 
prevalent custom of exalting women who are butter- 
flies of fashion above those who are bees in the social 
hive, as is too often done. The notice which Mrs. 
Ellet's book received from " The New Covenant " con- 
veys the sentiment I would express. It is forcible and 
just, and is probably from the fearless pen of that 
better than queen in American society, the cultured 
writer and speaker, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore. This 
critic says, — 

" With a portion of this book we are pleased and 
interested. The sketches of Mrs. Washington, Mrs. 
Hancock, Mrs. Madison, and other estimable and his- 



WOMEN LEADERS IN SOCIETY. 131 

toric wx)meu, are exceedingly fascinating. Their story 
has often been narrated ; but it never palls, and loses 
nothing by repetition. But in other portions we are 
obhged to protest against its tendency, which is towards 
emphasizing the value of much that is fictitious and arti- 
ficial in life. Many of the ' queens ' of this book are 
women who have ' led the fashions ; ' who have excelled 
in the splendor of their receptions, the magnificence of 
their balls ; who could wear the most extravagant dia- 
monds and pearls, display the heaviest velvets, the rarest 
laces, the costliest jewels ; who could give parties where 
* the dresses cost fifty thousand dollars, and the jewelry 
half a million.' One lady was distinguished because 
she ' could entertain twenty gentlemen at once ; ' and 
another, because ' she received sixteen ofi^ers of marriage 
before she was eighteen.' The daughters of the ' first 
families of Virginia,' who were among these ' queens,' 
were taught fine embroidery, and the care of their 
complexions. ' No high-born maiden would " spread 
her hand " by turning the door-knob, or touching the 
tongs, or handling a heavy object.' These ladies had 
' family ' and ' pedigree ' and sang pur to boast of : 
they were noticed at courts, were introduced to Vic- 
toria and Eugenie, had personal charms and fascinating 
arts, which they made liberal use of. Is this a life to 
be held up for emulation to the women of this earnest 
nineteenth century ? Shall the women of this country 
be incited to live for the empty aim of obtaining com- 
pliments from foreign courts, of being leaders of fashion, 
achievers of social triumphs, senseless, useless, frivo- 
lous, gilded butterflies? . . . We do not undervalue 
family, wealth, nor social distinction. Tliey are the 
good gifts of God, and should be nobly employed ; but 
when prostituted to low aims, to the purchase of selfish 



132 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

and unworthy gratifications, the example is to be dep- 
recated, not made a boast of, nor held up for emulation. 
The book is illustrated with a dozen, or more, finely- 
engraved steel portraits of beautiful women, and is very 
pleasant reading, even when you do not sympathize 
with the characters portrayed." 

With this editorial expression, every high-toned, lite- 
rary, and scientific and religious woman will concur. 
But it is fair, also, to note that Mrs. Ellet herself says 
in her Preface, " I trust the candid reader wiU admit 
that the women most prominent in our society have 
had better than frivolous claims to distinction ; that 
they have possessed high moral worth and superior 
intellect. Many of them have devoted their influence 
and efforts to works of charity. It is the blessing of 
New York, — so justly reproached as the temple of 
money-worship, — that her most elevated society is per- 
vaded by a noble spirit of benevolence, and the refine- 
ment of taste growing out of mental culture. A line 
of distinction is drawn between the class that confers 
honor on the country, and mere shallow, vulgar pre- 
tenders, whose lavish display of wealth is their only 
merit." The readers of Mrs. Ellet's book, if otherwise 
informed concerning the private lives of those who 
shone in public, will be able to judge how far that dis- 
crimination extended. 

Among the many who are admiringly mentioned as 
adorning society in the early part of the first American 
century is Martha Jefferson Randolph, the daugh- 
ter of Thomas Jefferson, and the wife of Thomas Mann 
Randolph, afterwards governor of Vuginia. This lady, 
when a young girl, was intrusted in Paris to the care 
of Mrs. Adams, and was kind in manners, and pleasant 
in conversation. The scope and style of her attain- 



WOMEN LEADERS IN SOCIETY. 133 

ments may be gathered from the directions of hei 
father to her teacher, Mrs. Trist of Philadelphia : " From 
eight to ten, practise music ; from ten to one, dance one 
day, and draw another ; from one to two, draw on the 
day you dance, and write a letter next day ; from three 
to four, read French ; from four to five, exercise your- 
self in music ; from five to bedtime, read English, write, 
&c." This is somewhat different from the routine of 
study Margaret Fuller knew ; but perhaps it was all 
that seemed necessary for one who was not to engage 
in literary pursuits, nor to stamp indelibly her spirit 
upon the women of America. But Mrs. Randolph was 
undoubtedly a woman of amiable character ; for John 
Randolph, who was the political enemy of her father 
and her husband, called her " the sweetest woman in 
America." 

Mrs. Randolph was one of the " Ladies of the White 
House ; " and thus I am reminded to speak of another, 
who in later years led society in Washington as the mis- 
tress of the Executive Mansion, but has not of course 
been mentioned among the wives of the presidents, — 
Mrs. EivnLY Donelson, the niece of Pres. Jackson's 
wife. The president himself settled the question of 
precedence between herself and her relative, the wife 
jf Andrew Jackson, jun.,and installed Emily as hostess 
jf the White House. It is said that in person she resem- 
bled Mary, Queen of Scots. She had exquisite taste 
in dress, and, " of lively imagination, she was quick at 
repartee, and had that gift possessed by so few talkers, 
of listening gracefully. Thi'own in contact with the 
brightest and most cultivated intellects of the day, she 
sustained her part ; and her favor was eagerly sought 
by the learned and political. A foreign minister once 
saic to her, ' Madam, you dance with the grace of a 



134 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Parisian. I can hardly realize you wore educated in 
Tennessee.' — ' Count, you forget,' was the spirited reply, 
' that grace is a cosmoi)olite, and, like a wild flower, is 
much often er found in the woods than in the streets of 
a city.' " ^ 

The wife of Andrew Jackson, jun., made her entrie at 
the White House as a bride, and won the admiration of 
all from her mingled dignit}^ and affabihty. She was a 
Miss YoRKE of Philadelphia. For years she presided at 
the Hermitage, as Gen. Jackson's home was termed ; and 
the crowds who gathered there were as blessed by her 
society and welcome as by that of the old hero whose 
fame attracted them. 

Angelica Van Buren may be termed a leader in 
society, since she presided at the White House when 
her husband's father was president. She was a lady of 
South Carolina, and in early life enjoyed those advan- 
tages for education and accomplishment which well 
fitted her for the sphere she was later to fill. Mrs. 
Halloway bears testimony that " her entire existence 
has been one of prosperity ; but it has not rendered her 
selfish : it has rather, on the contrary, induced the 
employment of her gifts in behalf of others." 

The White House had a young lady as its mistress 
during the presidency of Millard Fillmore, — his only 
daughter, Mary Abigail Fillmore, who was well 
fitted by education, and a long residence in Washington, 
to adorn the high station she was called to fill, and who 
acquitted herself with great dignity. She was a fine 
scliolar. French, German, and Spanish were well 
known to her ; and she had a taste for sculpture, fostered 
by her loved schoolmate, Harriet Hosmer. She was a 

1 Mrs. Halloway's I^adies of the AVhite Hous«. 



WOMEN LEADERS IN SOCIETT. 135 

pupil, at one time, of the celebrated school of Mrs. 
Sedgwick, in Lenox, Mass., and afterward of the State- 
Normal School ; and, to her honor be it spoken, she 
taught in a public school of Buffalo till her father 
needed her attendance in the White House. She died 
suddenly of cholera in 1854, while on a visit to her 
grandfather, in Aurora. Her name is cherished as that 
of ojie worthy to lead in the most refined and educated 
circles, where dress and fashion are subordiruite to cul- 
ture and good sense. 

Harriet Lane was a leader in society whom none 
could criticise. Being the favorite niece of Pres 
Buchanan, she was at the White House, its admirable 
mistress, winning the praise of the many whom she 
assisted to entertain. Early left an orphan, she had 
been educated under her uncle's direction ; was abroad 
with him when he represented our country at the court 
of St. James ; and was a favorite with the queen and 
the royal family. And it is written of her (who is 
now the wife of Henry Elliott Johnston) that she 
retired from the White House, " leaving behind a memory 
all pleasantness, and a record of untarnished lustre. 
Her lofty place had not spoiled her ; for the nobleness 
of lier inner life recognized no superiority of the ex- 
ternal badges of greatness. Li its fullest, finest sense^ 
she had been a belle, and withal a very beautiful and 
good woman." 

The White House had, a few years after, another 
lady as its mistress, whose claim to be a leader in 
society could be based upon personal excellence as well 
as upon that distinction ; viz., Martha Patterson, 
the daughter of Pres. Johnson. She was reared in the 
mountain region of East Tennessee. She was early 
distinguished by her industry as a student ; and, in 



136 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

domestio duties, " she never had time to play." She 
was the eldest of five children ; and her mother needed 
her eflBcient help, which she always rendered cheerfully. 
While her father was a member of Congress, she was 
placed at school in Georgetown. In 1856 she married 
Judge Patterson, and visited Nashville, where her 
father was then governor of the State. When, by the 
death of Pres. Lincoln, her father became president, 
she presided at his home in the place of her invalid 
mother. Among other words of deserved commenda- 
tion, Mrs. Halloway says of her, " Simple but elegant 
in her apparel, never descending to a disregard of 
place, yet not carried away by the follies of fashion, 
Mrs. Patterson has pleased the eye, and gratified the 
pride, of all who felt an interest in her success. Golden 
opinions of her taste were won by the rich simplicity 
of her toilet on every public occasion ; and the beauty 
of her dress consisted always in the artless, unassuming 
manner of the wearer." 

Her sister, Mary Stover, shared with Mrs. Patter- 
son the honors of the White House and the name of a 
leader in society. " Mrs. Stover, unlike her sister, is a 
blonde, with very light auburn hair, and features in 
keeping with her temperament." She is " slight and 
tall, with much repose of manner." She was no leader 
in society from taste, but simply from position ; and 
even that might not be conceded by those who consider 
a great regard for fashion and dress and worldly pleas- 
ure necessary in a society leader. Mrs. Stover was a 
woman of genuine kindness of heart. " Tried and 
proved true in the high station of a president's daugh- 
ter, she will never be found wanting in any position in 
life ; and into her retirement the kind wishes and 
sincere thanks of the American people follow her." 



WOMEN LEADERS IN SOCIBTT. 137 

The ladies thus far mentioned owe much of their 
celebrity to the fact that they presided at the capita] 
of the nation. Other women there have been since the 
dawn of our first century, as in colonial days, who were 
gentlewomen in the truest sense, and therefore worthy 
leaders in society. The limits of this chapter allow 
but the merest mention of them ; but the book of Mrs. 
Ellet, before mentioned, and the pages of American 
history, whereon their husbands or fathers are men- 
tioned, will help one to understand their position and 
attainments ; while the biographies of the husbands of 
some of them will assist in the appreciation of their 
social qualities and success. Sarah Livingston Jay, 
wife of the minister to Spain in 1779, was a leader, of 
whom the daughter of John Adams, writing from Paris 
in 1785, said, " Every person who knew her when here 
bestows many encomiums upon Mrs. Jay. Madame de 
Lafayette said she was well acquainted with her, and 
very fond of her, adding that Mrs. Jay and she thought 
alike, that pleasure might be found abroad, but happi- 
ness only at home, in the society of one's family and 
friends." 

Elizabeth Temple Winthrop was the reigning 
belle of Boston in 1786. Her husband, the governor 
of Massachusetts, " possessed an ample fortune ; and 
they lived in style, exercising a generous hospitality, 
and receiving at their table most strangers of considera- 
tion who came to the vicinity." 

Mercy Warren was a daughter of James Otis of 
Barnstable, Mass. The Otis family first settled in 
Hingham, a quiet, ancient town of that State. She 
married a merchant, and resided on a farm, continuing 
her literary pursuits, but receiving, also, distinguished 
guests, — Washington, Lee, Gates, and other officers. 



138 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Mrs. Adams was her lifelong friend. " Seldom has a 
woman in any age," says Mrs. Ellet, "acquired such 
ascendency by the mere force of a powerful intellect ; 
and her influence continued to the close of her life." 
Her friend, Hannah Winthrop of Cambridge, Mass., 
deserves to be mentioned also in this connection. Both 
women had much influence on their times. 

Mrs. Knox led also in the society of those days which 
tried men's souls, and women's too. Sl'e was the daugh- 
ter of the last secretary of the Province of INIassachu- 
setts Bay, and was said, by the Due de la Rochefoucauld 
Liancourt, to possess " sprightliness, knowledge, a good 
heart, and an excellent understanding." 

" The daughters of William Sheaffe of Boston were 
noted for beauty and fasliion." Susanna eloped with 
Capt. Molesworth, a nephew of Lord Ponsouby, who was 
in command of the British troops landing at Boston. 
Margaret married John R. Livingston, then a Boston 
merchant. Lafayette admired her ; and she was said to 
be so handsome, no one could take her picture. The 
impartial sun was not then known as an artist. Helen 
married James Lovell, an oflBcer in the naval service. 
At thirteen she wrote a poem in answer to the question, 
" What is religion ? " 

Dorothy Quency Hancock was the daughter of 
Judge Edmund Quincy, and married the governor of 
Massachusetts, who was afterwards president of the 
first Congress. She was the midaunted woman who 
ordered her servants to milk the cows pastured on Bos- 
ton Common, for the accommodation of her guests from 
the French fleet. The anecdotes told by Mrs. Ellet of 
her and her husband are of considerable interest in these 
centennial days, but mainly prove them to have been 
kindly and intelligent people of the bon vivant sort. 



WOMEN LEADKR8 EN SOCIETY. 139 

Catherenb Greene was a leader of society in hor 
day, as the wife of Gen, Nathaniel Greene of Revolu- 
tionary memory ; but she is much more worthy of note 
as the patron of Eli Whitney, and therefore the one 
who helped introduce the cotton-gin to the world. 

" The incident of her quitting her own house when 
Aaron Burr claimed her hospitality, after his duel with 
Hamilton, leaving the house for his use, and only return 
ing to it after his departure, illustrates her generous and 
impulsive character. In her later years she retained 
her singular power of fascination, and would hold a 
company in breathless attention with her winning tones 
and brilliant sketches of character, or tales of adven- 
ture. She had, in truth, a faculty of charming all who 
approached her." 

Mary Wooster was the daughter of Dr. Clapp, the 
president of Yale College, and was only sixteen when 
married to Gen. David Wooster, who was killed in 
Connecticut during the Revolutionary War. She was 
brilliant in conversation, beautiful, well educated, and 
religious. 

Sarah Thompson — the Countess Rumford — was 
the daughter of Benjamin Thompson, who was made a 
count by the Elector of Bavaria. Her grandfather was 
Rev. Timothy Walker, the first clergyman in Concord, 
N.H. She inherited her father's title ; never married ; 
died iu Concord, N.H., in 1852. " She had considerable 
property saved from her father's estates, with a pension 
of nearly one thousand dollars a year from the Bavarian 
Government for the services rendered by her father. 
This she bestowed chiefly in charity, and, dying at 
seventy-^ight, left fifteen thousand dollars for an 
asylum at Concord for widows and female orphans." 
She was more truly one who mingled much in foreign 



140 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

society than a leader in her own land ; but I meution 
her here as an American woman of peculiar connections^ 
whose name will not soon be forgotten, because of her 
bequests. 

Anne Bingham was a Philadelphia belle, the daugh- 
ter of Thomas Willing, and grand-daughter of the first 
mayor of Philadelphia. At sixteen she married William 
Bijigham, and went abroad ; attracting much attention 
at the court of Louis XVI. She then went to England, 
where, it is said, " her elegance and beauty attracted more 
admiration than, perhaps, was willingly expressed in the 
old court of George the Third." Immense wealth en- 
abled her to live in luxury ; and thus her charms were 
displayed in society so as to win a recognition. She 
returned to Philadelphia, where her husband built a 
magnificent house, and she led society. " Her style 
illustrated all that was imposing and superb in the sociai 
life ; and her acknowledged judgment and taste in dress, 
and in the arrangements of her house, her influence over 
aU with whom she came in contact, the splendors with 
which she was ever surrounded, and the aristocratic 
character of her parties, gave her a celebrity which be- 
came historical in the annals of higher social life in 
America." ^ 

Elizabeth Graeme Ferguson was the daughter 
cf Sir William Keith, the governor of Pennsylvania. 
She married a Scotch gentleman, ten years her junior ; 
*nd political differences led to their separation ; for she 
Wck-s a patriot, and he espoused the royal cause. She 
presided in her father's house, who was a physician 
(Dr. Thomas Graeme), and collector of the port. Her 
talents and accomplishments rendered her home, " tha 
Carpenter Mansion," attractive and celebrated. 

I Qneen8 of Amerifan S'^riety. 



WOMEN LEADERS IN SOCIETY. 141 

SAJtAH Bache was the only daughter of the phi- 
losopher and statesman, Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and 
was bom in Philadelphia in September, 1744. She 
was a zealous republican, and was prominent in the 
best society. Her house was the rendezvous for the 
committee superintending the making of shirts for 
the army. In 1792 she accompanied her husband, 
Richard Bache, to whom she was married in 1767, to 
England ; and two years afterward they settled on a 
farm near the Delaware, where they exercised un- 
bounded hospitality for many years. 

Rebecca Franks, the daughter of a wealthy Jewish 
merchant, was distinguished for beauty, intelligence, 
and wit. She married Lieut.-Gen. Sir Henry Johnston, 
and lived abroad. When Gen. Scott visited her long 
years afterward, she exclaimed, " I have gloried in 
my rebel countrymen 1 " She evidently felt that the 
women of Revolutionary days should have been loyal 
to the stars and stripes. 

Mrs. Annis Stockton was a patriot, — the wife of 
one, and the mother-in-law of another, signer of the 
Declaration of Independence. She was called " the 
Duchess " for her elegance and dignity. Her daughter 
Julia became the vife of the celebrated Dr. Benjamin 
Rush. 

Mary Alsop King was the only child of a wealthy 
New York merchant, who was a member of the first 
Continental Congress. She was noted for beauty and 
an unspoiled nature, and at sixteen married Rufus 
King. 

Catherine Schuyler was the only daughter of a 
gieat landholder, and the wife of Gen. Philip Schuyler. 
She was remarkable for her vigorous intellect and good 
judgment ; and many instances of her heroic spirit are 



142 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

recorded. " Her social influence was widely recog- 
nized, and was transmitted to her accomplished daugh- 
ters. The second of these, Elizabeth, married Alexan- 
der Hamilton in December, 1780. 

Mrs. Wilson was the daughter of Col. Charles 
Stewart, and was celebrated in New Jersey, both in the 
days of her girlhood and widowhood. " In her jour- 
neys to and from the camp, Mrs. Washington stopped 
to visit Mrs. Wilson. During the presidency of Wash- 
ington, when Mrs. Wilson came to Philadelphia with 
her daughter, and entered society, she was distinguished 
by particular attentions from his family. . . , For fif- 
teen years after her father's death, she devoted her time 
to the settlement of his large estates, and the care of 
two orphan nephews, one of whom was the distin- 
guished missionary and author. Rev. Charles Stewart. 
In 1808 she removed to Cooperstown, N.Y. ; but her 
last years were spent at ' The Lakelands,' the beautiful 
residence of her daughter, near that town. Hers 
was a lovely close of life, universally respected and 
honored : it might better be called a ripening for im- 
mortality." * 

Cornelia Beekmaij was born in 1752, and lived to 
the great age of ninety-five years. Her birthplace was 
on the banks of the Croton, in the Cortlandt manor 
house ; her place of death, the old manor house in 
Tarrytown, on the banks of the Hudson. " Her social 
qualities and unbounded hospitality made her famous 
throughout the country. . . . She was known as an 
accomplished lady of the old school. With steadfast 
principles, she had a lofty sense of honor ; with force 
of will and stern resolution, a heart alive to ail kindly 
feeling** In her prime she was noted for beauty of 

1 Que«na of Ajuerican Society. 



WOMEN LEADERS IN SOCIETY. 143 

person, refinement, and dignified courtesy ; while hei 
conversation was brilliant and interestiag. Amid her 
stores of anecdote were thrilling tales of the olden time. 
Her mental faculties were unimpaired to the last, though 
her sight failed. Calmly she awaited death, with the 
clear faith of a Christian, and, while counting the fail- 
ing beats of her pulse with one hand, signed her name 
with the other, shortly before she breathed her last." 

Catherine Field, the grand-daughter of Mrs. Beek- 
man, had the blood of some of the most distinguished 
families in America in her veins. She was carefully 
educated, and has hospitably entertained her friends in 
New York, and devoted herself to the care of her two 
children. Though not really distinguished in any 
sphere of public hfe, she is a worthy wife and mother ; 
and one can but respect domestic virtues and social 
qualities. 

Susan Rudd, afterward the wife of Judge Hunting- 
ton of Indiana, was of the Carroll family of Maryland. 
She was educated in a convent, and was accomplished 
in music, and a good linguist. She married, when but 
sixteen, a Mr. Fitzhugh ; but her husband soon died, 
and she married Judge Huntington. She was the 
mother of five children, and died at the age of thirty- 
two. " This lovely woman had a ruling influence in 
social circles, but one more valuable in the hearts of 
those nearest to her." 

Pamela Williams married Gen. Jacob Brown, at 
the age of eighteen. " Her house was the centre of a 
polished coterie." 

Sallte Ward was a belle in Kentucky and the 
West, cradled in luxury, and a leader of fashionable 
society. Mrs. Ellet's pages glow with her praises and 
descriptions of her dress, — a matter of no small impor- 



144 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

tance to society lovers, and of minor importance with 
others. 

Eleanor Parke Ctjstis, the grand-daughter of 
Lady Washington. She married Lawrence Lewis on 
the birthday of " the Chief," 1799. She was worthy 
of her relationship to George and Martha Washington. 

Marcia Van Ness married Hon. John P. Van Ness, 
at the age of twenty, and became a resident of Wash- 
ington ; and " their home was one of the most brilliant 
and agreeable in the capital." She was the first Amer- 
ican woman buried with public honors, her husband 
being at that time mayor of Washington. 

" One of the intimate friends of Mrs. Van Ness, and 
one called by her ' the most popular woman who was 
ever in Washington,' was the wife of Levi Woodbury, 
secretary of the navy. She was the daughter of Hon. 
Asa Clapp of Portland, the most wealthy man, at that 
time, in the State of Maine." 

" The niece of Mrs. Van Ness of Washington was 
celebrated as a belle, universally admired in the society 
of the capital in the winter of 1828-29. She was ?»Iiss 
Cornelia Van Ness, the daughter of Cornelius P. Van 
Ness, the eminent chief justice, and governor of Ver- 
mont. He was appointed minister to Spain by Gen. 
Jackson; and she accompanied him, and won a high 
place among the Spanish grandees. She had a brilliant 
career in Spain as a favorite in social circles of the 
highest grade ; and in May, 1881, in Paris, she was 
married to James J. Roosevelt of New York; Gen. 
Lafayette giving away the bride. For many years 
she was a queen in the leading society of New York. 
She has recently deceased ; and " The New York 
Tribune " contained the following tribute to her memo- 
ry:— 



WOMEN LEADERS EN SOCIETY. 145 

To THE EdXTOB of THB TBIBtJNK. 

Sir^ — The remains of a noble lady, Mrs. Cornelia 
Roosevelt, have been taken to your city for interment. 
She will be mourned on both sides of the ocean. She 
was indeed a noble lady in heart, intellect, cultivation, 
and all the graces. For more than a quarter of a cen- 
tury, she dispensed the refined hospitalities of her New 
Y'ork home, after presiding over her father's (Minister 
Van Ness's) establishment. Her many graces were not 
merely those of the high-bred lady. She was a woman 
of queenly dignity, who had sympathy for all suffering. 
She had all the graces of the daughter, of the mother, 
of the wife, of the friend, of the sister of mercy. This 
is the tribute which all who knew her will pay to her 
memory. W. A. H. 

Washinoton, April 22, 1876. 

Her sister Marcia, married Sir William Gore Ouse- 
ley, and accompanied him to Rio Janeiro, to represent 
England at the coronation of the Emperor of Brazil. 
She was a celebrity in Washington and elsewhere for 
her " personal loveliness, charming manners, and ac- 
compHshments of conversation." 

Mary Leavenworth, the daughter of Hon. Joshua 
Forman, is identified, in a measure, with the prosperity 
of Syracuse, N.Y., which was founded by her father. 
Her maternal grandfather was a member of parliament 
for Glasgow. She was noted for beauty of person, and 
refinement of manners, with mental powers that aided 
her in the management of an ample fortune. 

Elizabeth Bordman Otis, better known by the 
name of her husband, Harrison Gray Otis, jun., was 
the daughter of a Boston merchant, and grand-daugh- 
ter of the first high sheriff of Suffolk County in Mass- 



146 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

acliusetts, whose duty it was to read tbe proclamation 
of Congress announcing a " Treaty of Peace between 
Great Britain and America." She and her husband 
were said to be " the handsomest bridal pair in Bos- 
ton." Of her benevolent works, mention* will be made 
in another place. She was early left a widow with 
young sons, for the sake of whose education she spent 
seven years abroad. On her return to Boston, " she 
opened her house for Saturday morning receptions, and 
Thursday evening soirSes, conducted on the foreign 
plan of tea and cakes. She did not vary this simple 
style of entertainment, even when strangers of dis- 
tinction were her guests." The record of her Hfe is 
worthy of a volume by itself; and, now that she has 
departed to the higher Ufe, it is hoped that American 
biographical literature will be enriched by it. 

Elizabeth Crittenden, the daughter of Dr. James 
W. Moss, was born in Kentucky, but soon removed to 
the We.«t,. She was twice widowed, and then, in 1853, 
married Hon. John J. Crittenden, then attorney-general 
of the United States. She was a favorite and leader in 
fashionable circles while in Washington, and Frankfort, 
Ky., and, after her husband's death, dispensed elegant 
hospitality in New York City. 

Mrs. Myra Clark Gaines has been at different 
times prominent in society in Washington. It is under- 
stood that a volume, embodying the singular history of 
her efforts to obtain her father's estate, is to be pub- 
lished. She is mostly known in connection with that 
most extraordinary case in the annals cf American 
jurisprudence. 

Mrs. Gilpin, formerly the widow of Hon. I. S. John- 
ston, then the widow of Hon. Henry D. Gilpin, has had 
a ruling influence in the society of Philadelphia. She 



WOMEN LEADERS IN SOCIETI!. 147 

was the daughter of a distinguished surgeon ; and in a 
home of wealth, after years of travel and enjoyment 
abroad, dispensed a regal hospitality, especially to the 
lovers of art and literature. She has been active in 
benevolent works. She is mentioned by Mrs. Ellet as a 
society-queen worthy of highest esteem. 

Ann Ridgeway, the daughter of a Philadelphia 
merchant who rivalled Girard, became Mrs. Rush by 
her marriage to a son of the celebrated Dr. Benjamin 
Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. Wealth belonging to both husband and wife, 
it was easy for her to become a leader in fashionable 
circles. She was peculiar ; and her social tastes wei-e 
not shared by her husband, who often sat alone in his 
library, absorbed in study, when the rest of the house 
was a scene of bewildering gayety. Mrs. Ellet devotes 
several pages to the history of this woman-leader in 
society. She died in 1857. 

Mrs. Coventry Waddell was, before her hus- 
band's name represented her, Charlotte Augusta South- 
wick. Born amid luxury, and always accustomed to 
great wealth, the tenor of her life can be easily imagined. 
Descriptions of her parties, and the elegance of her attire, 
were common in the papers ; and Mrs. Ellet furnishes a 
portion of them to her readers. 

" Emilie Schaumberj," says Mrs. Ellet, " is a Phila- 
delphia celebrity in society, who has added the fascina- 
tions of rare skill in vocal music, and still rartr powers 
of dramatic expression as an amateur comedienne, to the 
attraction of great beauty." 

Madame Octavia Le Vert " has reigned as a belle 
in both hemispheres ; has received the chivalrous admi- 
ration, alike in the northern and southern sections of 
the United States, as well as in the courtly circles of 



148 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Great Biitain and Continental Europe, and, at the same 
time, has never been assailed by the shafts of envy or 
calumny." ' Her grandfather was Gen. George Wal- 
ton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, and afterwards governor of Georgia. Her father, 
Col. Walton, was a millionnaire when he married the 
daughter of an eminent lawyer of Georgia, — a woman 
of brilliant accomplishments and large fortune. As her 
father was governor of Florida, " the little Octavia 
became early familiar with society. Her father took 
great pains with her education. Before she was twelve 
years old, she could write and converse in three lan- 
guages ; and often the colonel took her into his office, 
to translate, from the French or Spanish, letters con- 
nected with important affairs of state. Perched on a 
high stool, the little girl interpreted her foreign 
despatches with great exactness."* 

Miss Walton married Dr. Henry Le Vert of Mobile, 
in 1836, who died in 1863, " having been an invalid four 
years, tenderly nursed by the wife whom he blessed with 
dying breath." Other relatives having also died, she 
" was left alone in the world with her two young daugh- 
ters." But she retained the pleasing manners, and the 
noble qualities of heart and mind, which rendered her a 
favorite in earlier days. The change of fortune which 
she knew in later years did not diminish her power to 
charm ; she was a favorite in society till death, ever wel- 
come, reapected, and beloved. 

Mrs. Adelicia Cheatham, formerly Mrs. Acklen, 
was the daughter of Oliver B. Hayes of South Hadley, 
Mass., who was one of the pioneers of the middl« divis- 
ion of Tennessee, and married a daughter of a weai» 
farmer of that State. He was an eminent lawyer, and 

^ Queens of American Society. 



WOMEN LEADERS EN SOCIETY. 149 

afterward a clergyman, and was in possession of a large 
fortune. His daughter was consequently surrounded 
by all the advantages of wealth and culture. She was 
married in early youth to an opulent planter of Louisi- 
ana, who lived but a few years, and bequeathed his 
immense fortune to his beloved wife. The young 
widow was sought by many, and finally married Col. 
Joseph Acklen, an eminent lawyer. He lived but a few 
years ; and, shortly after his death, INIrs. Acklen went 
to Europe with her two children, where her accomplish- 
ments and wealth gave her entrance to the first society. 
She returned to her princely home in Nashville, and was 
at once a leader in social circles. She married Dr. W. 
A. Cheatham for her third husband, and is said to be 
distinguished for charities as for social graces. 

Martha Pierce Stannard "was a celebrated 
leader in fashionable society in Richmond, Va., where 
she lived thirty years. She was educated in Baltimore, 
and married at a very early age. Her house was the 
last burned when Richmond was in part destroyed, and 
it the close of the war she went to Europe." She has 
since returned, and will make her home in Fredericks- 
burg, Va. 

" Another distinguished lady, prominent in all noble 
works, as she has been in society by right of intellectual 
gifts and charming manners, is Miss Emily Mason of 
Kentucky," says Mrs. Ellet. During the war, her prop- 
erty was destroyed ; and she went to the hospitals, and 
proved herself worthy to be called a woman-leader in 
other circles than those of so-called "society." 

Jessie Benton Fremont, the widely known daugh- 
ter of Senator Benton, has historic fame from her 
connection with her husband, Gen. Fremont, and his 
exploring expeditions. " Very few women in the 



150 WOMEN OP THE CENTUKY. 

United States have equalled Mrs. Frdmont in brillian- 
cy of conversation. Almost at all times, her talk ia 
sparkling, flashing, it may be said, with lively wit and 
picturesque illustration, — ornament as unstudied, with 
al, as the play of a sunlit fountain. Her witticisms are 
continually repeated in society. It is the great charm 
of her humor and repartee, that they are perfectly spon- 
taneous. . . . Her appearance and manner are those 
usually thought distinctive of an J^nglish woman, and 
strikingly like those of her father. Her form is rather 
above the ordinary height, splendidly proportioned ; 
and her face is very handsome, and full of intellectual 
expression ; always lighted up with the glow of a bright 
spirit and the benevolence of a generous heart."' 

But the limits of this chapter forbid further mention 
of the women who have been, or are, leaders in the social 
circles of our land. Mrs. Ellet's book will afford further 
knowledge of those to whom reference is herein made, 
and the mention of others not unknown to social fame 
among the women of the past and present century. 

' Qu«eas of American Society. 



|7l^^ 




THE GREATEST OF THESE 
18 CHARITY 



CHAPTER V. 

PHILANTHROPIC WOMEN". 

Susan Huntington — Margaret Prior — Mary Ledyard — Kate Moore 

— Ida Lewis — Father Taylor's Widowed Friend — Sarah Hoffman 

— Isabella Graham — Sophia C. Hoffman — Lydia Maria Child — 
Maria Chapman and other Anti-Slavery Women — Charity Rod- 
man — Dorothea L. Dix — Clara Barton, &c. 



' Kindness in women, not their beauteous looliS, 
Shall win my love." Shakspeare. 



" Be not weary in well-doing; for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not.' 
Gal. vi. 9. 



THE kindness of woman is proverbial. Philanthropy- 
has always been championed by feminine men (not 
effeminate), or manifested by tender women. Mungo 
Park, fainting in the wilds of Africa, found woman a 
solace and a blessing ; and all the ages have shown that 
it is as natural to woman to engage in philanthropic 
labors, as it is for man to be warlike and fond of the 
chase. So Mary M. Chase could write truthfully, -— 



152 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

" What if to pestilential cell whose very air is death, 
Man comes, on mercy's errand bent, with half-suspended breath? 
There hath her footstep passed ere his, her gentle voice been heard 
The dark air of the prison-house her snow-white garments stirred. " 

And every reader of the records which blaze with the 
glory of " good-will to men " will remember with loving 
reverence the names of Elizabeth Fry and Florence 
Nightingale, — the name of the one forever wedded to 
the thought of Newgate and its prisoners, who hung 
with joy upon her lips as she read from the word of 
God to them, or lifted her voice in solemn prayer ; the 
name of the other blended with the recollections of the 
Crimea, and the thought of the soldiers in those hospi- 
tals who gladly kissed the shadow of their good angel, 
whose philanthropy was the guaranty of their comfort 
in the hour of need. 

It has been the same with American women : only 
their names have seldom been emblazoned on the scroll 
of fame, and perhaps will never reach the celebrity of 
those whom England and all civilized countries " delight 
to honor." Yet our first century has shown the United 
States to be honored in the possession of such women 
as are worthy to be named with Mrs. Fry in respect to 
deeds of philanthropy and benevolence. 

The author of " Noble Deeds of American Women " 
mentions Susan Huntington as a woman with the very 
spirit of her who made such angelic visits to London 
prisoners. She was born Jan. 27, 1791 ; was the daugh- 
ter of one minister, and wife of another ; the latter 
being pastor of the historic Old South Church of Bos 
ton, Mass. Her memoir was written by her husband's 
successor in the pastorate, and passed through five 
editions in Scotland. After she was a widow she was 
robbed of jewelry by a young woman ; and at the trial 



PHrLANTHROPIO WOMEN. 153 

ol the thief she refused to appraise her jewels, knowing 
that the degree of punishment depended on the value 
of the property stolen. Another was called upon to 
appraise them , and " she told him to bear in mind 
that they had been used for many years, were conse- 
quently damaged, and out of fashion. In this way she 
secured a low and to herself a satisfactory valuation. 
She then addressed the judge, stating that she had 
herself taken the jewelry from a trunk, had carelessly 
left it exposed on a table, had thus throwu temptation 
in the way of the girl; and suggested that her own 
heedlessness might possibly have been the cause of 
the offence. She did not, she assured the judge, wish 
to interfere with his duties, or wrongly bias his decis- 
ions ; but she would nevertheless esteem it a favor, 
if the punishment inflicted on the unfortunate trans- 
gressor could be the lightest that would not dishonor 
the law. Hoping the ignorant girl would repent and 
reform, she left the stand with tears in her eyes, which 
greatly affected the judge. In his sentence he reminded 
the culprit, that the person whom she had most 
offended was the first to plead for a mitigation of her 
punishment, and had saved her from the extreme rigors 
of a broken law." This was not an act of philanthropy 
which would entitle her to a niche in the temple of 
fame, perhaps, in the view of some ; but surely it was 
an act in the same kindly spirit in which all philan- 
thropic acts are performed ; and out of such a spirit 
have grown our prison-reform societies and many other 
benevolent enterprises. 

Margaret Prior had this same spirit. She was born 
in Fredericksburg, Va., in 1773. Her maiden name 
was Barrett ; and she married first William Allen, 
a merchant of Baltimore, and then William Prior, 



154 WOMEN OF THB CENTURY. 

a public-spirited and benevolent Quaker. She was 
at that time a Baptist, but in 1819 united with the 
Methodists. When the New York Orphan Asylum 
was instituted, she was one of the managers, and ever 
after engaged in similar good works. Of her self-deny- 
ing habits and self-sacrificing labors, one can learn by 
reading a book entitled " Walks of Usefulness ; or, 
Reminiscences of Margaret Prior." In soup-houses, 
and as a city missionary among the poor, her labors 
were arduous ; and she adopted several children. She is 
numbered among those active Christians, of conserva- 
tive theological opinions, and large heart, who are 
industrious in " organizing week-day and sabbath 
schools, industrial associations, and temperance societies, 
establishing soup-houses and orphan-asylums, visiting 
the sick, the poor, the idle, the culprit, the outcast; 
pointing the dying to a risen Saviour, leading the desti- 
tute by the hand to a place of relief, the idle to housei 
of industry, and warning the outlaw and the corrupl 
of the certain and terrible doom that would attend 
persistency in their downward course. With the sweet- 
ness, gentleness, simplicity, and delicacy, so becoming 
in woman iinder all circumstances, were blended in her 
character, energy that was unconquerable, courage 
that danger could not blench, and firmness that hxmian 
power could not bend. The contemplation of such a 
character is superficial, if it does not prompt benevolent 
feelings, re-afifirm virtuous resolutions, and revive and 
strengthen drooping piety." 

If service to the soldiers of liberty was ever philan- 
thropic, as it always is, it was surely so in the day when 
Fort Griswold was attacked by the British, and the 
city of New London, Conn., burned. Historians record 
the cruelty of the British soldiers as almost incredible, 



PHILANTHROPIC WOMEN. 155 

their barbarity to the wounded American soldiers being 
monstrous. " One of the ministering angela who came 
the next morning to the aid of the thirty-five wounded 
men who lay all night freezing in their own blood, was 
Miss Mary Lbdyard, a near relation of the colonel. 
' She brought warm chocolate, wines, and other refresh- 
ments ; and while Dr. Downer of Preston was dressing 
their wounds, she went from one to another administering 
her cordials, and breathing into their ears gentle words 
of sympathy and encouragement. In these labors of 
kindness she was assisted by another relative of the 
lamented Col. Ledyard, — Mrs. John Led yard, who 
had also brought her household stores to refresh the 
sufferers, and lavished on them the most soothing 
personal attentions. The soldiers who recovered from 
their wounds were accustomed, to the day of their 
death, to speak of these ladies in terms of fervent grati- 
tude and praise.' " 

England is proud of her Grace Darling, and her name 
and prowess in rescuing the drowning is familiar to all 
who cherish deeds of heroic philanthropy ; but England 
is rivalled by America when Kate Moore and Ida Lewis 
are mentioned. Kate Moore was the daughter of a 
light-house keeper, and. her home was Fairweather 
Island, on the coast of Conuecticut. In 1851 Mr. 
Clement wrote of her, " She has so thoroughly cultivated 
the sense of hearing, that she can distinguish amid the 
howling storm the shrieks of the drowning mariners, 
and thus direct a boat, which she has learned to 
manage most dexterously, in the darkest night, to the 
spot where a fellow-mortal is perishing. Though well 
educated and refined, she possesses none of the affected 
ielicacy which characterizes too many town-bred misses , 
but, adapting herself to the peculiar exigencies of her 



156 WOMEN OF THE CENTUKY. 

father's humble yet honorable calling, she is ever ready 
to lend a helping hand, and shrinks from no danger, if 
duty points that way. In the gloom and terror of the 
stormy night, amid perils at all hours of the day and 
all seasons of the year, she has launched her bark on 
the threatening waves, and has assisted her aged and 
feeble father in saving the lives of twenty-ona persons 
during the last fifteen years." 

Ida Lewis, who has been termed " the Grace Dar- 
ling of America," is a Newport heroine. Col. Brewer: 
ton, the artist, has made an interesting word-picture of 
this noble young woman and her deeds of heroism. 
She is the daughter of Capt. Hosea Lewis of Hingham, 
Mass., and was named after her mother, Idawalley Zo- 
rada Willey, who was a daughter of a Block Island 
physician, Dr. Aaron C. Willey. Ida was born on Feb. 
25, 1842, and was fifteen when her parents moved to 
Lime Rock Lighthouse. Until that time she had at- 
tended the public schools of Newport. Her father 
becoming paralytic, she was obliged to use the oars, and 
bring all the supplies to the lighthouse, and row her 
brothers and sister to and from school. Hence she 
became an expert rower, and was as fearless on the 
ocean as others on the land. In the fall of 1858 she 
first gratified her philanthropic nature, and won a place 
among the brave, by rescuing four young men from 
drowning, when their pleasure-boat had been upset 
through recklessness. She was then but sixteen. Eight 
years after, when Ida had barely reached the age of 
Grace Darling, she rescued a drowning soldier from the 
neighboring fort. In 1867 she rescued three Irishmen 
who were out in a boat after a sheep which was drifting 
out to sea. Their skill and courage failed them, and 
amid the white-capped billows they were powerless to 



PHILANTHROPIC WOMEN. 159 

reach the shore ; and having taken the men off their 
sinking boat, and safely landed them, she returned, and 
rescued also the sheep. 

Two weeks after, she rescued a man whose boat, ' 
stove by a rock, had sunk, and left him up to his neck 
in water, while the rising tide was threatening to 
ingulf him. " On the twenty-ninth day of March, 
1869, at about five o'clock, p.m., Ida was sitting in her 
favorite seat beside the fire, finishing some work before 
the preparation of the family's evening meal." Her 
mother discovered suddenly a boat capsized, to which 
were clinging two men, soldiers from the garrison at 
Fort Adams. The lad who was the manager of their 
sail-boat was already drowned, and they were in fright- 
ful peril. The mother rushed toward her daughter, 
and shrieked out the awful fact. 

" The daughter only catches the words, ' drowning 
men,' and is already upon her feet, prompt and eager 
for action. In spite of her father's expostulations (for 
the old sailor knows the danger, and fears the risk), she 
springs to the door. All thought of the warmth and 
safety within have vanished now. The patient, toiling 
girl, immersed in vulgar cares of mending, or preparing 
the evening meal, becomes the heroine, flying with 
dauntless soul to the rescue of the perishing. She has 
no shoes upon her feet, no hat upon her head, no outer 
garment to protect her slight figure from the storm. A 
towel is hastily seized, and knotted loosely about her 
neck ; and her stocking-clad feet are bruised by the 
sharp rocks and stones, as she speeds her way to the 
ever-ready boat. A younger brother, at her request, 
goes with our heroine, to assist in dragging in the 
drowning men. But to Ida's practised hand, and to 
Ida's willing arms, must be trusted the plying of those 



160 WOMEN OP THE CENTUBY. 

oars, upon whose dexterous use depends, under Provi- 
dence, the saving of the lives now so sorely threatened. 
Never before were those hands so tried, the strength of 
her woman's arm so tested, as they must be by the 
struggle of to-day. Pull bravely, girl, though the green 
billows, crested with foam, come flying over the open 
boat, drenching its occupants to the skin, and every 
instant threatening their destruction. Pull bravely, nor 
heed the dash of the billows, the blinding rain, or the 
muttering storm. For fame, success, and a nation's 
encomiums wait upon your exertions ; or, it may be (but 
she never paused to think of that), a watery grave 
beside those whom you are endeavoring to save. Mean- 
while, the mother has rushed out into the storm, and, 
regardless of the weather, takes her stand upon the 
rock, wildly gesticulating, and answering the cries of 
the drowning men, in the hope that they may be en- 
couraged to continue their efforts for life by the pros- 
pect of succor. It is all she can do, and she does 
it well. . . . The race for life is accomplished, the 
drifting wreck overtaken, and its exhausted crew add 
new laurels to Ida's wreath of well-earned fame. Once 
more in a place of safety, they speedily regain the 
Light, where Sergt. Adams is barely able to totter up 
to the house, while his companion is so far gone that 
their united strength is required to remove him from 
the boat. So ends the story of our heroine's exploits, 
— deeds worthy of emulation, which, in the grand old 
days of classic Greece and Rome, would have gained 
the applause of senates, and been perpetuated through 
the sculptor's marble, and upon the historian's tablet 
of brass, to ages yet unborn." 

A silver medal and a check for one hundred dollars 
were awarded Ida from the Life-Saving Benevolent 



PHILANTHKOPIO WOMEN. 161 

Association of New York. In the General Assembly 
of her native State, Rhode Island, resolutions in ac- 
knowledgment of her valuable services were passed, 
and communicated to her in due form by a document 
from the Secretary of State, and with the State seal 
afl&xed. The ofl&cers and soldiers of Fort Adams sent 
their thanks, and a purse of two hundred and eighteen 
dollars ; and letters from all parts of the country, with 
various gifts, were forwarded to her, indicative of her 
fame as a heroine. Since she thus became famous, 
thousands have visited the Lime Rock Lighthouse to 
see her ; among them the vice-president of the nation, 
Mr. Colfax. And when the president (Gen. Grant) 
visited Newport, he solicited an interview with her, 
with the same spirit of regard for her heroism. Her 
fellcw-townsmen honored themselves in presenting to 
her a boat, on the 4th of July, 1869; the public presen- 
tation taking place on the parade-ground in front of 
the State House. The rudder was of walnut with 
silver plate inscribed, and was from the Narragansett 
Boat Club of Providence. The officers of the steamer 
" Newport " presented two beautiful flags. The speech 
in presenting the boat was made by the Hon. Francis 
Brinley ; and the response in behalf of Miss Lewis was 
by Col. T. W. Higginson. Few women may ever be- 
come famous as she has for handling the oar so bravely 
and with such results ; but all true women will delight 
to honor one who so nobly reflects honor on her sex 
and on humanity. 

There are many philanthropic women who in Chris- 
tian faith and love have done noble deeds of which the 
world has only learned through the results of their 
labors upon others who have become famous, while their 
own names are lost to human knowledge. Such an one 



1G2 WOMEN OF THE CENTUEY. 

was the widowed friend of him who was afterwaxda 
known as " Father Taylor,'* — the Rev. Edward T. 
Taylor, the successful preacher to seamen in Boston. 
She was one who found her happiness as many women 
do, in 

" Humble toil and heavenwaxd duty; " 

and, as she resided in an ignorant and vicious neigl bor- 
hood, she used to open her little front room for prayer- 
meetings, and scattered seed on the arid soil. Father 
Taylor, then a gay sailor, attended, and became in- 
terested in religious truth. He was summoned to sea, 
and was made a prisoner in Halifax. The widow visited 
her relatives there, and, in a philanthropic spirit, 
visited the prison. " In one apartment were the Ameri- 
can prisoners. As she approached the grated door, a 
voice shouted her name, calling her mother ; and a youth 
appeared, and leaped for joy at the grate. It was the 
lost sailor-boy 1 They wept and conversed like mother 
and son ; and, when she left, she gave him a Bible, — 
his future guide and comfort. During her stay in Hali- 
fax, she constantly visited the prison, supplying the 
youth with tracts, religious books, and clothing." Long 
years afterwards, an aged English local preacher met 
Father Taylor in Boston ; and, as they conversed, it was 
found that his wife was the same philanthropic widow. 
Father Taylor hastened away, and in a short time 
reached the residence of this local preacher, with all 
his family, and introduced himself as the sailor-boy of 
the prayer-meeting and the prison. One can easily 
imagine the scene that followed. Her labors, she then 
found, had not been in vain in the Lord. 

Isabella Graham came to this country from Scot- 
land, and in 1789 settled in New York. She was noted. 



PHTLANTHROPIO WOMEN. 163 

during the latter part of her life, for her Christian 
benevolence ; and though not properly a subject for 
notice in this volume, which aims to mention those 
born in our States mainly, she commenced so many 
benevolent enterprises, and her influence is so widely 
felt, and name so well known, among the philanthropic 
women of America, that one is justified in regarding 
her as one of the notable women of the century. She 
made it a rule to give a tenth part of her earnings to 
religious and charitable purposes, a rule which it would 
be well for all Christian women to adopt. In 1795 she 
received, at one time, an advance of one thousand 
dollars on the sale of a lease which she held on some 
building-lots ; and, not being used to such large profits, 
she said, on receiving the money, " Quick, quick, let 
me appropriate the tenth, before my heart grows hard." 
She assisted to establish a society for the relief of poor 
widows, and was first directress. Her biography, by 
Mrs. Bethune, gives accounts of numerous similar 
charities which she organized or promoted. She started, 
day schools, and established sabbath schools, visited the 
alms-house, and attended to the instruction of the 
children there. On March 15, 1806, a society for 
establishing an orphan-asylum was formed, and she was 
the presiding officer. " In the winter of 1807-8, when 
the suspension of commerce by the embargo rendered 
the situation of the poor more destitute than ever, 
she purchased flax, and lent wheels ; " and the indus- 
trious poor spun and wove the flax, which was after- 
ward made into tablecloths and towels for the family 
use. 

Mrs. Graham was president of the board of ladies 
who superintended the Magdalen Asylum, and assisted 
in forming a society for promoting industry among the 



164 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

poor. She died July 27, 1814. Of her it was said, as 
of Dorcas, " This woman was full of good works and 
alms-deeds which she did." 

Sarah Hoffman was one of her valued coadjutors. 
She was daughter of Judge David Ogden of New York ; 
born at Newark, Sept. 8, 1742, married Nicholas Hoff- 
man in 1762. If, as Granger declares, — 

" The height of virtue is to serve mankind," — 

she reached that height. " Mrs. Hoffman, with Mrs. 
Graham and their associates, often perambulated the 
districts of poverty and disease from morning till night, 
entering the huts of want and desolation, and carrying 
comfort and consolation to many a despairing heart. 
They clambered to the highest and meanest garrets, and 
descended to the lowest, darkest, and dankest cellars, 
to administer to the wants of the destitute, the sick, and 
the dying. They took with them medicine, as well as 
food ; and were accustomed to administer Christian 
counsel or consolation, as the case required, to the infirm- 
in body and the wretched in heart. They even taught 
many poor creatures, who seemed to doubt the existence 
of an overruling Providence, to pray to Him whose laws 
they had broken, and thereby rendered themselves 
miserable." 

The founder of the benevolent institution known as 
the Chapin Home, in New York City, was a woman, — 
Sophia C. Hoffman, — a native of Sheffield, Berkshire 
County, Mass. In her early life an invalid aunt, by her 
own suffering with a sense of dependence, impressed 
upon Mrs. Hoffman's mind the importance of a home 
where aged women who had been accustomed to the 
comforts of a competence in earher days could feel inde- 



PHILANTHBOPIO WOMEN. 165 

peudent, at the same time that they were made com- 
fortable ; and she promised this relative, that, if ever the 
means were in her possession, she would seek to establish 
such a retreat. The Chapin Home was the outgrowth 
of this experience, and, from its inception to its comple- 
tion, was the subject of earnest prayer. Faith and love 
were the pillars upon which this arch of benevolence 
rested. As the years rolled on, and Mrs. Hoffman 
found herself the wife of a successful merchant of New 
York, and dwelling in one of the palatial homes on 
Fifth Avenue, this dream of her childhood became a 
reality ; and, with the hearty co-operation of her hus- 
band, George Hoffman, she consecrated the first con- 
tribution to the new enterprise, and then toiled to 
obtain co-laborers, that the home might be reared and 
occupied. It was to be whoUy unsectarian, and was so 
incorporated, though it was to bear the name of a 
widely known Universalist preacher, who had been for 
many years Mrs. Hoffman's own honored and beloved 
pastor, and whose teachings had greatly strengthened 
her in benevolent purpose, so that she often declares 
this Home to be a blossoming of the truths so elo- 
quently proclaimed by him ; an evidence of the truth 
expressed by Whittier in the words, — 

♦' God is loved through love of man." 

The first annual report of this charity mentions that 
the first meeting of friends interested in the enterprise 
was held on Feb. 1, 1869, in the basement of Dr. 
Chapin's church. New York ; but prior to this several 
private meetings had been held in Mrs. Hoffman's 
parlors ; and the corner-stone of the ha-ndsome brick 
edifice was laid by Mrs. Hoffman's own hands. This ig 



iG6 WOMEN OF THB CENTUBY. 

not the only charitable cause to which this woman of 
philanthropy has given aid. She is to be numbered 
also among the reformers, as one of the first treasurers 
of the Association for the Advancement of Woman, 
and a vice-president of the Woman's Centenary Associ- 
ation among the Universalists. But the Chapin Home 
was especially her work, since from early youth she 
hs.d planned such a charity, and while in Europe 
visited many such homes in Great Britain and on the 
Continent, that she might study their methods, and 
develop a plan for a self-sustaining and permanent 
institution. " And thus," as a friend writes, " when 
fair fortune so smiled on her that she could command 
money enough to start the enterprise, she did so 
not with the hand of a novice, but with a hand strong 
to fulfil the pledge made to her soul in its spring- 
time." 

Chahity Rodman proved herself worthy of her 
name. She was bom in Newport, R. I., in 1765, 
and married Thomas Rotch of Nantucket, June 6, 
1790. He died in 1823, and left a large amount 
of property at her disposal. She established a school 
fund for orphan and destitute children, which four 
or five years after her death, " which occurred on 
Aug. 6, 1824, amounted to twenty thousand dollars. 
The interest of this sum has since purchased a farm of 
a hundred and eighty -five acres, one and one-half miles 
from the village of Massillon, O., and erected, at a 
cost of five thousand dollars, a large brick edifice for 
educational and dwelling purposes, which has been 
open seven years, and which sustains forty pupils. The 
real and personal estate of the institution is now esti- 
mated at thirty-five thousand dollars. A class of ten 
pupils enters annually,* and remains four years. The 



PHrLAlJTHROPIO WOMEN. 167 

school is established on the manual labor plan ; and the 
boys are thoroughly instructed in the art of husbandry, 
and the girls in culinary duties, and the manufacture 
of their own wearing apparel. Children enter between 
the ages of ten and fourteen ; hence the youngest leave 
as advanced in life as their fifteenth year, a period 
when their habits of industry and their moral princi- 
ples usually become too well estabhshed to be easily 
changed. 

** This school, founded by the benevolence of a single 
individual, a devout yet modest and quiet member of 
the society of Friends, is destined to become a source 
of inestimable blessings. Ever}' half a century, five 
hundred otherwise neglected plants in the garden of 
humanity will there be pruned and nurtured and 
strengthened for the storms of life. And this offering 
of Christian philanthropy — the school — will stand as a 
memorial of woman's worth. The highest ambition of 
its founder was, to be a blessing to those who should 
come after her ; and it may be said, that, while she did 
not live in vain, neither did she die in vain. Her 
death threw a legacy into the lap of orphanage, the 
benignant influence of which wiU long be felt." 

Among the philanthropic efforts in our country, may 
surely be counted all those made during the days of 
slavery in the land, for the benefit of the slave, espe- 
cially for his liberation from the cruel bondage which as 
John Wesley declared was " the sum of all villanies." 
The roll-call of the philanthropic women in the seranks 
would be long and brilliant. The saintly and sainted 
Samuel J. May, in his " Recollections of the Anti- 
Slavery Conflict," has mentioned many of them, and 
given anecdotes of their self-sacrifice and bravery, for 
w^hich there is not space on these pages, but which 



168 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBT. 

timll the heart of the reader, and make one glad to be 
in a world where such women have lived and labored. 
Ltdia Maria Child was one of those philanthro- 
pists whose able pen won others to the advocacy of 
freedom, while provoking also the prejudice of the 
South. She was a Francis, born in Medford, Mass., 
Feb. 11, 1802, but passed her early Ufe in Maine. Id 
the " Eminent Women of the Age," is an extended 
biographical sketch of this noble woman, written by 
Col. T. W. Higginson. Further mention will be made 
of her in the chapter devoted to literary women. But 
her literary fame, though verj^ great, is almost eclipsed 
by the sense of her philanthropic spirit. The exercise 
of this noble spirit caused her books to fall into sudden 
obscurity. She anticipated this when she wrote her 
"Appeal" in behalf of the poor slave. Her words 
had the Spartan ring and the Christian martyr tone as 
she said in its preface, " I am fully aware of the unpop- 
ularity of the task I have undertaken ; but, though I 
expect ridicule and censure, I cannot fear them. A 
few years hence, the opinion of the world will be a 
matter in which I have not even the most transient 
interest ; but this book will be abroad on its mission of 
humanity long after the hand that wrote it is mingling 
with the dust. Should it be the means of advancing, 
even one single hour, the inevitable progress of truth 
and justice, I would not exchange the consciouaness for 
all Rothschild's wealth, or Sir Walter's fame." This 
was the first anti-slavery work in book-form ever 
printed in America ; and evem Dr. Channing attributed 
a portion of his anti-slavery zeal to this book. In her 
work as a philanthropist, as well as a literary woman, 
Mrs. Child assisted her husband, the late David Lee 
Child, Esq., to edit "The Anti-slavery Standard," and 



PHELANTHKOPIO WOMEN. 169 

also prepared several other books and pamphlets 
besides her powerful " Appeal." Nor has she labored 
with her pen alone as a philanthropist. The haunts of 
misery have known her presence, bearing help and 
consolation to the weary and heavy laden. Lowell, in 
his "Fable for Critics," renders poetic tribute to her 
worth, in which occur these truthful words : — 

" Ah, there's many a beam from the fountain of day, 
That, to reach us unclouded, must pass on its way 
Through the soul of a woman ; and hers is wide ope 
To the influence of heaven as the blue eyes of hope ; 
Yes, a great soul is hers, — one that dares to go in 
To the prison, the slave-hut, the alleys of sin. 
And to bring into each, or to find there, some line 
Of the never completely out-trampled divine ; 

What a wealth it would bring to the narrow and sour, 
Could they be as a ChUd but for one little hour I ' ' 

For almost or quite a quarter of a century, Mrs. 
Child has dwelt at Wayland, Mass., in the cottage 
bequoathed to her by her father, enjoying a realization 
of Thomson's description of a happy life, — 

" Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books, 
Ease, and alternate labor, useful life, 
Progressive virtue, and approving heaven." 

Her cheek still glows with the rose of youth, though 
her hair has begun to be silvery with age, but the heart 
of love looks through the sweet blue eyes ; and one is 
constrained to say there are few women so handsome 
in their declining years, and justify the admiring look 
of her husband as he called her, in my hearing, " an 
angel of mercy," while he spoke of her continued 
interest in philanthropic enterprises. No wonder CoL 



170 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Higginson closed his sketch with the words, " No rural 
retirement can hide her from the prayers of those who 
were ready to perish when they first knew her ; and 
the love of those whose lives she has enriched from 
childhood will follow her fading eyes as they look 
toward sunset, and, after her departing, will keep hei 
memory green." 

There is another woman of the first centurj', still 
lingering on the shores of time to bless those who are 
around her, as she has blessed the world for eighty 
years, — Lucketia Mott, the philanthropic woman, as 
well as the Quaker preacher. She is " a native of the 
island of Nantucket, of the Coffins and Macys on the 
father's side, and of the Folgers on the mother's ; 
through them related to Dr. Franklin. Born in 1793 ;" 
brought up to be useful in the family; in 1804, re- 
moved to Boston, and studied in the public and private 
schools there. Afterwards studied in the Friends' 
Boarding School in Dutchess County, N.Y., and then 
became a teacher there, though but fifteen years of age. 
At the early age of eighteen she married James Mott 
of New York, and removed to Philadelphia, where she 
has since resided, dwelling now in a lovely suburban 
retreat which she adorns and makes attractive to visit 
ors from many lands. Mrs. Soule writes thus of a 
recent visit : — 

" I go where I have long wanted to go, — to the roof- 
tree that shelters the venerable Lucretia Mott. It is a 
lovely home, standing in a lawn of spotless beauty. 
Part of the house is old and of Quaker simplicity ; and 
part of it modem, and, though corresponding with the 
older part, yet tastefully elegant. We count it a great 
privilege to have seen Friend Mott in her own home, 
queen of the household, as she has long been queen of 




LUCRETIA MOTT 



PHILANTHROPIO WOMEN. ^ 173 

the platform. She received us very kmily, and gave an 
inimitable description of Abel Thomas, the grandfather 
of Rev. A. C. Thomas, who was a celebrated Quaker 
preacher when ' Lucretia ' was a very young girl; 
and she showed a surprising familiarity with all the 
topics of the day, demonstrating that assertion we 
sometimes make, that because people grow old they 
need not necessarily grow rusty. She is really a won- 
derful woman ; brilliant in intellect, tender in heart, 
guileless in soul. Though past eighty, she is one of 
the most industrious women of the period. She spends 
several hours every day in reading and writing in the 
cosey little library which she showed us, saying, as she 
did 80, ' I keep a wood-fire on the hearth ; and I build 
it myself, by choice, every morning.' Nor does she 
fold her hands when her hours for study are over. She 
showed us twenty yards of beautifully fine rag-carpet 
which she had made since she was eighty ; and brought 
out her tiny work-basket, with the rags cut by herself, 
an unfinished ball lying in the midst, and beside it her 
skeins of ravellings, for she maintains that ravellings 
are better to sew carpet-rags with than thread I ' But 
don't they break too easily ? ' — ' On the contrary, I find 
them too strong sometimes.' I looked at her dainty 
fingers ; and it seemed to me a spider's thread would be 
strong enough for th^m to sew with. Yet the carpet, 
when done, is substantial and likewise really beautiful, 
the rags are cut with such precision, and the colors so 
fairly blended. We each — and I should have said 
before, the venerable Elizabeth Peabody, of kinder- 
garten experiments and kindergarten success, was also 
a caller — we each begged a yard or so from the unfin- 
ished ball ; and, as she placed my strips in my hand, I 
was prouder than if Victoria had given me » ' Garter- 



174 WOMEN OP THH CBNTUBY. 

ribbon.' Birth, made Victoria a queen; but her own 
pure, sweet life makes Lucretia Mott a queen, — queen 
of a realm on which the sun never sets, the realm of 
humanity. If ever any woman ' inherited the earth,' 
It 18 this blessed Quaker woman. I shall carry the 
memory of this brief call with me till I meet her in the 
higher home." 

A faithful picture is thus given of this saintly woman, 
— the " Saint Lucretia " of those who bow at the 
shrine of reform and philanthropy in America. With 
her 

" Every wrinkle is a line of beauty; " 

and she long ago learned how to " grow old gracefully." 
Combe, the phrenologist, pronounced her head the 
finest he had ever seen on a woman ; and it was well 
said by Theodore Til ton, that, " in the same sense in 
which the greatest man ever produced in this country 
was Benjamin Franklin, the greatest woman ever pro- 
duced in this country is Lucretia Mott." She early 
engaged in the temperance movement and in the peace 
reform. But she has been specially known in connec- 
tion with the anti-slavery effort, and the movement in 
favor of universal suffrage. In this connection her 
labors will be mentioned in another chapter. Her 
sister Martha Coffin Wright, who deserves also to 
be mentioned with philanthropists and reformers, said 
of her, "The striking traits of Lucretia's character are 
remarkable energy that defies even time, unswerving 
conscientiousness, and all those characteristics that are 
smnmed up in the few words, ' love to man and love to 
God.' " 

If the anti-slavery laborers may also be called phi- 
lanthropists, as surely they should be, then there are 



PHILANTHROPIC WOMEN. 175 

many more names that should gleam on the list of 
philanthropic women of the century. But the mere 
mention of Maria Weston Chapman, whose valiant 
defence of anti-slavery principles led to her receiving the 
cognomen of Capt. Chapman, and who was a woman of 
literary as well as philanthropic tastes ; the mention of 
her sisters also ; of the Grimk^ sisters ; of Prudence 
Crandall, who persisted in teaching a colored pupil in 
her school in Connecticut, though she was imprisoned 
one night in a cell just before occupied by a murderer, 
for disobeying a wicked law of her State in so doing, 
— this line of mention must suflBce, while reference will 
be made to others in future chapters. Yet as long as 
memory lasts to those who have listened to anti-slavery 
philanthropists, or read their pathetic appeals in behalf 
of the slave, will the names of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 
Ernestine L. Rose, Susan B. Anthony, Sallie Holley, 
Caroline Putnam, Harriet Beecher Stowe (whose " Uncle 
Tom's Cabin " prepared the way for the war which 
resulted in emancipation), Anna Gardner, Sarah Pugh, 
&c., be sacred and precious. 

Samuel J. May bore testimony, that, " from the begin- 
ning of Mr. Garrison's enterprise, excellent women werw 
among his most earnest, devoted, unshrinking fellow- 
laborers. Their moral instincts made them quicker to 
discern the right than most men were ; and their lack 
of political discipUne left them to the guidance of their 
convictions and humane feelings." ^ 

One philanthropic woman, who died in 1818, waa 
the wife of the joint founder, with his uncle, of the 
well-known Phillips Academy. Phebb Phillips was 
accustomed, for years, to make the health of every 
pupil in the academy a subject of personal interest. 

1 RecoUectiona of the Anti-Slavery Conflict. 



176 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

She sought to be as a mother to the students far from 
their homes. During the Revolution she was one of 
those who prepared bandages, scraped lint, and made 
garments for the soldiers. "An offender of justice 
was once passing her house on his way to the whipping- 
post, when a boy who observed him from her window 
could not withhold a tear. He tried to conceal his emo- 
tion, but Mrs. Phillips saw the pearl-drop of pity ; and, 
while a kindred drop fell from her own eyes, she said 
to him with much emphasis, and as though laying 
down some golden maxim, ' When you become a law- 
maker, examine the subject of corporal punishment, 
and see if it is not unnatural, vindictive, and produc- 
tive of much evil.' She was very discriminating, and 
could detect talent as weU as tears ; and addressed the 
lad with a premonition that he was destined to become 
a legislator, which was indeed the case. Elected to the 
assembly of the State, with the sacred command of his 
early and revered Mentor impressed on his memory, 
he early called the attention of that body to the sub- 
ject of corporal punishment ; had the statute-book 
revised, and the odious law, save in capital offences, 
expunged, and the pleasure of announcing the fact to 
the original suggestor of the movement." ^ Dorothea 
L. Drx, known as the prisoner's friend, was born in 
Massachusetts, and passed her youth in or near Boston. 
In earlier years she was a teacher, and prepared several 
books, mostly for children. " Her name was not given 
to any of her works ; but we allude to them here," 
says Mrs. Hale, " to show that a refined literary taste 
and genius are compatible with the most active philan- 
thropy, even when compelled to seek its objects through 
researches that are both painful and terrible." 

» Noble De«d5 of Amarioan Women. 



PHELANTHBOPIO WOMEN. 177 

In 1834 she went to Europe for her health, and 
there gained much valuable information about charita- 
ble institutions. " In 1837 she returned to Boston, 
and soon commenced visiting the poor-houses and 
houses of refuge for the unfortunate. She also be- 
came interested for boys in the naval asylum. Then 
she went to prisons and lunatic-asylums, everywhere 
seeking to ameliorate suffering, and instruct the igno- 
rant." For many years she labored persistently in 
behalf of the insane. " In founding the State hospi- 
tals in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Indiana, 
Illinois, Louisiana, and North Carolina, her exertions 
were of much importance, by preparing the public 
mind to sympathize with this pecuhar charity." Dur- 
ing the war, she labored in the hospitals, but will 
doubtless be mainly remembered for her faithful labors 
in behalf of the insane. Mrs. Child brought Miss Dix 
first to the notice of many in her charming " Letters 
from New York," where she says, " Dorothea L. Dix, 
our American Mrs. Fry, the God-appointed missionary 
to prisons and almshouses, told me that her experience 
more than confirmed her faith in the power of kindness 
over the insane and vicious. 

" Among the hundreds of crazy people with whom her 
sacred mission has brought her into companionship, she 
has not found one individual, however fierce and turbu- 
lent, that could not be calmed by Scripture and prayer, 
uttered in low and gentle tones. The power of reli- 
gious sentiment over these shattered souls seems per- 
fectly miraculous. The worship of a quiet, loving 
heart affects them like a voice from heaven. Tearing 
and rending, yelling and stamping, singing and groan- 
ing* gradually subside into silence ; and they faU on 
their knees, or gaze upward with clasped hands, as if 



178 WOMEN OF THE CENTTJBY. 

thej saw through the opening darkness a golden gleam 
from their Father's throne of love. 

'* On one occasion this missionary of mercy was 
earnestly cautioned not to approach a raving maniac. 
He yelled frightfully, day and night, rent his garment, 
plucked out his hair, and was so violent that it was 
supposed he would murder any one who ventured 
within his reach. Miss Dix seated herself at a little 
distance, and, without appearing to notice him, began 
to read, with serene countenance and gentle voice, cer- 
tain passages of Scripture filled with the spirit of ten- 
derness. His shouts gradually subsided, until at last 
he became perfectly still. When she paused, he said 
meekly, ' Read me some more : it does me good.' And 
when, after a prolonged season of worship, she said, ' I 
must go away now,' he eagerly replied, ' No : you can- 
not go. God sent you to me ; and you must not go.* 
By kind words and a promise to come again, she finally 
obtained permission to depart. ' Give me your hand,' 
said he. She gave it, and smiled upon him. The 
wild expression of his haggard countenance softened to 
tearfulness, as he said, ' You treat me right : God sen/, 
you.' 

" On another occasion, she had been leading some 
twenty or thirty maniacs in worship ; and, seeing 
them all quiet as lambs gathered into the Shepherd's 
fold, she prepared to go forth to other duties. In leav- 
ing the room, she passed an insane young man with 
whom she had had several interviews. He stood with 
hands clasped, and a countenance of the deepest rever- 
ence. With a friendly smile, she said, ' Henry, are you 
well to-day ? ' — ' Hush 1 hush I ' replied he, sinking his 
voice to a whisper, and gazing earnestly on the space 
around her : ' hush I there are angels with you. They 



PHILANTHROPIO WOMEN. 179 

have given you their voice.' But let not the formalist 
suppose that he can work such miracles as these in the 
professed name of Jesus. Vain is the Scripture or the 
prayer, repeated by rote. They must be the meek 
utterances of a heart overflowing with love ; for to such 
only do the angels ' lend their voice.' " 

Mention might be made of Claba Barton and 
Fbances Dana Gage. The one will be mentioned 
among the toilers in the war-time, and the other as a 
reformer. Jenntb C. Collins, who has done much 
philanthropic work in Boston and elsewhere, has writ- 
ten her name on the heart of many a young girl whom 
she has helped to gain employment, and thereby saved 
her from temptation to vice. " Boffin's Bower," — a 
pleasant retreat which she has established in Boston, 
where innocent amusement, and opportunities for gain- 
ing knowledge by means of lectures, readings, &c., is 
afforded these girls, as well as some way of obtaining 
employment, — it is hoped, will long continue a proof 
of her wise philanthropy. Annie T. Endicott, wife of 
William Endicott, jun., was mentioned by the press of 
Boston as one of the philanthropic women of the cen- 
tury. A writer in *' The Transcript " said, " She was 
beloved by friends who felt the charm of her rare 
powers of conversation and of her unselfish life. Dur- 
ing the civil war, she was an efficient manager of the 
Women's Association, which was auxiliary to the Sani- 
tary Commission, devoting a large measure of her time 
to the preparation of supplies, and to the employment 
of the wives of soldiers. Then and later, she was in- 
terested in sending teachers to the freedmen. She waa 
appointed by Gov. Claflin a trustee of the Lancaster 
Industrial School for Girls. In this service her excel- 
lent sense and executive ability were conspicuous. 



180 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

She saw the necessity of a change of methods, and 
insisted on labor as an essential part of any scheme for 
the reformation of the vicious. Somewhat disheartened 
with the obstructions which were opposed to a reform, 
she resigned after several years of earnest effort. 

Some three or four years ago she joined in a move- 
ment for the higher education of women, and was to 
the end deeply interested in it. She was the president 
of the society ; and many will long remember her as she 
shared in the conferences which were held m Boston at 
the residence of Gov. Claflin. On a visit to Athens, two 
years ago, she gave such time as was at her command 
to a kindred effort then in progress in that city ; and a 
Greek lady of the highest culture was cheered by her 
sympathy and counsels. She gave much time to the 
fair which was held in Boston for the relief of the French 
after the German invasion. She was associated with the 
Christian work of King's Chapel, where she wor- 
shipped, and with other miscellaneous activities of phi- 
lanthropy." 

Women have not been wanting in those efforts to 
prevent cruelty to animals, which is a part of true 
philanthropy. Among these may be mentioned Cabo- 
LINE L. Barnard, who provided in Lynn, Mass., at an 
expense of three hundred dollars, a pump and stone 
drinking-fountain, expressly intended for the use of the 
thirsty horses whom she justly commiserated. Caro- 
line Earle White of Philadelphia has also been 
earnest and efficient in this department of philanthropy, 
caring especially for the canine favorites who have 
been lost, that they should not be tormented or killed 
without efforts to find their owners, who would gladly 
rescue them, and would not willingly mourn the loss of 

" Something that always loved me, 
Something that I could trust." 



PHILANTHROPIO WOMEN. 181 

Linda Gilbert has chosen as her special philan 
thropic work, the furnishmg of libraries for prisoners, 
in the same spirit, doubtless, with which Elizabeth Fry- 
secured libraries for the coast-guard in England at their 
lonely stations. A Chicago paper says, " Miss Linda 
Gilbert, after a year or more of labor, has finally accom- 
plished an undertaking which will make her name 
memorable as long as we shall have a jail, and culrrits 
to fill it." The same work has been prosecuted by her 
in other cities. A New York paper says, — 

"Miss Linda GHbert, of No. 143 East Fifteenth 
Street, encloses to us a copy of her report of work 
in New York, which began Sept. 1, 1873. Since 
that date she has disbursed |3,644. Seven hundred 
volumes were presented by the young ladies of the 
New York Normal College ; and six hundred volumes 
have been sent to the House of Detention. Of these 
books the publishers contributed four hundred volumes, 
und the balance by other parties. The Police Board 
are building a bookcase to contain them. These books 
are properly covered and classified. An intelligent 
man (now waiting the motion of the courts in Ludlow- 
street Jail) is devoting his time to the library work. 
Independent of this library business. Miss Gilbert has 
three practical ladies who assist in furnishing homes, 
clothing, night lodgings, and more especially employ- 
ment for released prisoners who come from all parts of 
the country." 

Very wisely have some of our Commonwealths ap- 
pointed women as prison-inspectors. Mrs. Elizabeth 
B. Chase, a woman ready for every good word and 
work, has been a lady visitor in Rhode Island, appointed 
by its governor, and afterward read a valuable paper 
before the Prison Congress held in London, proving the 
need of the appointment of such visitors. 



182 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

At a prison-reform meeting held in New York, 
June 8, 1876, Mrs. C. F. Coffin of Indiana, who is 
an oflBcial visitor to the Indiana State Prison for 
Women, read an able paper on the subject of Reform 
in Prisons, in which she said, with great wisdom, that 
the women's prison should be entirely imder the controi 
of women. So should women in our almshouses have 
full charge of women there. Every intelligent woman 
in this country so believes ; and it is devoutly hoped 
that the second century of American independence 
will see women using their special ability as philan- 
thropists in oflBcial capacity, and with all needful author- 
ity- 

Gov. Dingley of Maine wisely appointed women as 
visitors to the insane hospitals, and among them Mrs. 
Cordelia Adeline Quinby, the philanthropic wife 
of Rev. G. A. Quinby, D.D., editor of " The Gospel 
Banner," in Augusta, Me. She is a native of Lewiston, 
and taught in the public schools of her native State for 
thirteen years, when she took upon herself the duties 
of a pastor's wife, and stepmother ; both of which she 
has faithfully performed for many years. The care of 
three children of her own was added to these ; but she 
has yet found time to attend to philanthropic work in 
various directions, and to assist her husband in his 
editorial labors. Mrs. Quinby, in her modesty, would 
disclaim prominence as a philanthropist ; but it is cer- 
tain she has ably seconded her husband's noble efforts, 
till both at last have the satisfaction of seeing the 
death-penalty abolished in Maine. "May it soon be 
abolished from the code of every other State in our 
Union I" prays every philanthropic woman in the 
land. 

Women have not been wanting in philanthropio 



PHILANTHROPIC WOMEN. 183 

efforts towards the education of the ^Toung. Volumes 
might be written, and not complete the tale of self- 
sacrificing effort by many, many women, to educate their 
relatives, themselves often toiling in the cotton-factory 
that their brothers might be supported in college, as 
Lucy Larcom has depicted Ruth Woodburn in her 
" Idyl of Work," saying of her as she tended the loom 
in the cotton-mill, — 

" She's here 
To save the homestead, and help educate 
Brothers and sisters. She will do it too." 

One woman of this century, Miss Sophia Smith of 
Hatfield, Mass., chose to bequeath her fortune, and 
found thereby the college in Northampton, known as 
Smith College ; the object of which is, to estabhsh an 
institution for the higher education of young women, 
with the design of furnishing them the same facilities 
as those enjoyed by young men in the best colleges of 
the land, as far as practicable. This is a truly philan- 
thropic work, and deserves more space than can be 
accorded to the enterprise here. Coming days and gen- 
erations will attest its value. 

Mrs. Colt of Hartford, Conn., was also philan- 
thropic when she built a church and schoolhouse on her 
extensive grounds, that the families of those who are 
employed in Colt's Armory may be duly instructed. 
Aurora Phelps has indicated the philanthropic spirit 
in her efforts to secure homesteads for women. 

But what avails it to mention more ? The list is too 
long, but it is bright as the midday sun. And among 
the names that shine with greatest lustre will be found 
those of the Sisters of Mercy and Charity connected 
with the Roman Catholic and other churches, not ex- 
cepting the Quakers ; for the plain quaint, garb of the 
members of the Society of Friends seldom fails to cover 



184 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

the heart of a philanthropist, whether man or woman, 
whether Isaac T. Hopper or Lucretia Mott. 

Since the first publication of this chapter, the saintly 
Lucretia Mott has passed away. She died at her beauti- 
ful home, November 11, 1880, and her funeral was at- 
tended by thousands. Rev. Dr. Furness, Miss Phebe 
Couzins, and others, bore testimony to the value of her 
philauthropic life. Her co-worker, Mrs. Child, has also 
closed her useful life on earth. 

The grave of Lydia Maria Child, in the old moss-grown 
cemetery at Way land Centre, Mass., is marked only by 
a plain white marble slab, bearing her name in full, age, 
date of death, and the words "You call us dead. We 
are not dead, but truly living now." 

Those who would know more of the benevolent Sis- 
ters of Charity are referred to a book called " Heroines 
of Charity," which has also an account of Mrs. Eliza A. 
Seton and her labors, with some record also of a phil- 
anthropic order called " The Little Sisters of the Poor," 
and the methods whereby they clothe the naked and sat- 
isfy the poor with bread. 

" Sorosis," the well-known society in New York, com 
posed of literary, professional, and philanthropic women, 
has a committee on philanthropy, which has done brave 
work under the earnest leadership of Mrs. Esther Herr- 
man, its chairman. 

The " Society of the Red Cross," at whose head in this 
country is Clara Barton, has been recently organized, 
with fair prospect of success in doing good, both in times 
of war and peace. 

A study of philanthropic success would leave the stu- 
dent with the conviction that while well-organized char- 
ity is desirable, no organizations can preclude the neces- 
sity for individual philanthropic effort, and God is stilj 
saying to every friend of humanity, " Whatsoever thy 
hand findeth to do, do it with tJiy might." 




CHAPTER VL 

WOMEN DURING THE CIVIL WAB. 

Women of the Sanitary Commission — Women of the Christian Com- 
mission — Women Soldiers — Women Nurses — Women Teachers 
among the Freedmen — Heroic Women, North and South. 



Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed ber hand, and faintly smiled, 
Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch beside her child ? 
All bis stranger words with meaning ber woman's heart sxipplied. 
With ber kiss upon his forehead, ' Mother,' murmured be, and died." 

John G. Whittier. 



" She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, 
the needy." — Peg v. xxxi. 20. 



36 reacbeth forth her hands to 



IF the women of the Revolution were valiant, and 
manifested a commendable fidelity to the cause 
of freedom, and a hearty sympathy with its defenders, 
the women who lived in the days of the Rebellion 
were no less patriotic and devoted. Rev. Dr. Bellows, 
who was the efficient president of the Sanitary Com- 
mission, bears a noble testimony to the facts that prove 
the truth of this statement. He says in his introduc- 



186 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

tion to the excellent work, " Woman's Work in the 
Civil War," by Dr. Brockett and Mrs. Vaughan, 
" Women there were in this war, who, without a single 
relative in the army, denied themselves for the whole 
four years the comforts to which they had been always 
accustomed, went thinly clad, took the extra blauAet 
from their bed, never tasted tea or sugar or flesh, that 
they might wind another bandage round some un- 
known soldier's wound, or give some parched lips in 
the hospital another sip of wine. Others never let one 
leisure moment, saved from lives of pledged labor 
which barely earned them bread, go unemployed in the 
service of the soldiers. God himself keeps this record : 
it is too sacred to be trusted to men. ... As a rule, 
American women exhibited not only an intense feeling 
for the soldiers in their exposures and their sufferings, 
but an intelligent sympathy with the national cause, 
equal to that which furnished, among the men, two 
million three hundred thousau'i volunteers. It is not 
unusual for women of aU countries to weep and to 
work for those who encounter the perils of war. But 
the American women, after giving up with a princi- 
pled alacrity, to the ranks of the gathering and advan- 
cing army, their husbands and sons, their brothers and 
lovers, proceeded to organize relief for them ; and 
they did it, not in the spasmodic and sentimental way 
which has been common elsewhere, but with a self- 
controUed and rational consideration of the wisest and 
best means of accomplishing their purpose, which 
showed them to be in some degree the products and 
representatives of a new social era, and a new political 
development. ... It is impossible to over-estimate 
the amount of consecrated work done by the loyal 
women of the North, for the army. Hundreds of 



"WOMEN DURING THE CIYIL WAR. 187 

thousands of women probably gave all the leisure they 
could command, and all the money they could save and 
spare, to the soldiers for the whole four years and 
more of the war. Amid discouragements and fearful 
delays, they never flagged, but to the last increased in 
zeal and devotion. And their work was as systematic 
as it was universal. . . . They showed a perfect apti- 
tude for business, and proved by their own experience 
that men can devise nothing too precise, too systematic, 
or too complicated for women to understand, apply, 
and improve upon, where there is any sufficient motive 
for it. . . . The distinctive features of woman's work 
in this war were magnitude, system, thorough co-opera- 
tiveness with the other sex, distinctness of purpose, 
business-like thoroughness in details, sturdy persist- 
ence to the close. . . . The work which our system 
of popular ^education does for girls and boys alike, and 
which in the middle and upper classes practically goes 
farther with girls than with boys, told magnificently at 
this crisis. Everywhere well-educated women were 
found fully able to understand, and to explain to their 
sisters, the public questions involved in the war. 
Everywhere the newspapers, crowded with interest and 
with discussions, found eager and appreciative readers 
among the gentler sex. Everywhere started up women 
acquainted with the order of pubHc business ; al)Le to 
call and preside over public meetings of their own sex, 
act as secretaries and committees, draft constitutions 
and by-laws, open books and keep accounts with 
adequate precision, appreciate system, and postpone 
private inclinations or preferences to general principles, 
enter into extensive correspondence with their own 
sex, co-operate in the largest and most rational plans 
proposed by men who had studied carefully the subject 



188 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

of soldiers' relief, and adhere, through good report and 
through evil report, to organizations which commended 
themselves to their judgment, in spite of local, secta- 
rian, or personal jealousies and detractions. ... Of the 
practical talent, the personal worth, the aptitude for 
public service, the love of self-sacrificing duty, thus 
developed and nursed into power, and brought tc the 
knowledge of its possessors and their communities, it 
is difficult to speak too warmly. Thousands of women 
learned in this work to despise frivolity, gossip, fashion, 
and idleness ; learned to think soberly and without 
prejudice of the capacities of their own sex ; and thus 
did more to advance the rights of woman, by proving 
her gifts and her fitness for public duties, than a whole 
library of arguments and protests. 

*' The prodigious exertions put forth by the women 
who founded and conducted the great faijrs for the 
soldiers in a dozen principal cities, and in many large 
towns, were only surpassed by the planning, skill, and 
administrative ability which accompanied their prog- 
ress, and the marvellous success in which they ter- 
minated. Months of anxious preparation, where hun- 
dreds of committees vied with each other in long- 
headed schemes for securing the co-operation of the 
several trades and industries allotted to each, and 
during which laborious days and anxious nights were 
unintermittingly given to the wearing work, were fol- 
lowed by weeks of personal service in the fairs them- 
selves, where the strongest women found their vigor 
inadequate to the task, and hundreds laid the founda- 
tions of long illness, and some of sudden death. These 
sacrifices and far-seeing provisions were justly repaid 
by almost fabulous returns of money, which, to the 
extent of nearly three million dollars, flowed into the 



WOMEN DURING THE CIVIL WAB. 189 

treasury of the United States Sanitary Commission. 
The chief women who inaugurated the several great 
fairs at New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Boston, 
Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and administered these 
vast movements, were not behind the ablest men in 
the land in their grasp and comprehension of the 
business in hand ; and often, in comparison with the 
men associated with them, exhibited a finer scope, a 
better spirit, and a more victorious faith. But for the 
women of America, the great fairs would never have 
been born, or would have died ignominiously in their 
gilded cradles. Their vastness of conception and their 
splendid results are to be set as an everlasting crown 
on woman's capacity for large and moD ey-yielding enter- 
prises. The women who led them can never sink back 
into obscurity." 

Besides ths United States Sanitary Commission, 
w^hich was created on the 9th of June, 1861, there was 
organized the Western Sanitary Commission, which 
" only supplied the wants of Western armies, and of 
the freedmen and white refugees of the Mississippi 
Valley ; " ^ and whose first authority to act came from 
Gen. Fremont, Sept. 5, 1861. There were also several 
State Sanitary Commissions ; and in November, ] 861, 
what was called the United States Christian Commis- 
sion was organized by the Young Men's Christian 
Associations convened in New York City at that time. 
" The general character of the duties of the Commis- 
sion was defined at the meeting that brought it into 
existence ; its grand ojbject as avowed was to promote 
the physical comfort and the spiritual welfare of the 
brave men of the army and navy, in the field, in the 
hospital, the prison, or wherever they may he found. 

1 Annual Cyclopedia for 1864, p. 739 



190 "WOMEN OF THE CBNTUBY. 

Like the Government, it embraces within the range 
of its influence the whole Union, and provides for the 
material and spiritual necessities of suffering humanity, 
without regard to race, creed, or position. It aims to 
save life in the hour of peril ; to ameliorate the condi- 
tion of our soldiers and seamen ; to perform, in the 
midst of war, the office of a kind friend ; to supply, as 
far as posidble, the place of home ; to furnish opportune 
and substantial relief when required ; to bind up the 
wounds ; to pour in the wine and the oil of love and 
peace ; to speak a word of sympathy and encourage- 
ment to the suffering and depressed ; to bring the influ- 
ences of the gospel to bear upon those who are far 
from home and its privileges, exposed to the dangers 
and temptations peculiar to the camp ; to arrest the 
thoughtless in their course, and reclaim the wayward ; 
to send forth the living, practical teachers to whisper 
Christian consolation to the dying, the wounded, the 
heavy laden in heart." ^ 

And all this work was faithfully done by every Com- 
mission ; women laboring in them all, and everywhere 
toiling faithfully and successfully. To narrate their 
self-denying deeds, to write aU their names even, would 
require a volume of many pages ; and they must be left 
unwritten and untold, but not unhonored and un- 
known. There were thousands, beside those who were 
actively connected with the Commissions, that labored 
for the comfort of the soldier. Quaker women, who 
could not sanction war and its horrors, were " left at 
liberty " to pursue a course of benevolence toward the 
wounded, " as best wisdom might direct ; " and they 
did not fail to hear the voice within, and heed it, as it 
told of the Good Samaritan, and said, " Go thou, and 
do likewise." 

1 Annual Cyclopedia for 1864, p. 802. 



WOMEN DURING THE CIVIL WAR. 191 

There is one aged woman in Philadelphia, who has 
been termed the Corneha of America ; for she, like the 
mother of the Gracchi of whom Plutarch speaks, con- 
versed of the sacrifices of her sons for their country 
" with the calmness that proceeds from unexampled 
fortitude." She enjoys also the distinction of being 
the oldest living female graduate of any institution in 
America. Her name is Mary Ellet. Her diploma 
from the Jay Ladies' Academy, of Philadelphia, was 
given to her in her fifteenth year. She was born on 
the 17th of June, 1779. She is the daughter of that 
Hannah Erwin Israel who is mentioned as a heroine or 
the Revolution in the chapter concerning those noble 
women, and is herself the mother and grandmother of 
heroes. Her son, Col. Charles Ellet, jun., lost his life 
in the service of his country ; and the son of that son 
died from the effects of loyal efforts, which impaired 
his health. 

A clergyman called upon her, in company with Mr. 
George H. Stuart, president of the Christian Commis- 
sion, whom she desired to employ as her almoner in dis- 
tributing the proceeds of two beautiful and valuable 
shawls among the widows and orphans of soldiers 
fallen in battle. The body of her grandson, Charles 
Rives Ellet, had just arrived ; and the clergyman ex- 
pressed the hope that the Lord would sustain her under 
her bereavement. Her answer was worthy of the 
American Cornelia. She stated that she had given her 
son, Col. Ellet of the Ram Fleet, and Brig.-Gen. Ellet 
of the Marine Brigade, and four grandchildren ; add- 
ing, '"'' I do not regret the gift to my country. If I had 
twenty sons, I would give them all, for the country 
must be preserved. And, if I were twenty years younger, 
I would go and fight, myself, to the last.^^ The above 



192 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

anecdote of her patriotism is from a sketch by Johc 
W. Forney in 1869. 

There were women soldiers in the war of the 
Rebellion as in the war of the Revolution. Women 
were not only on the battle-field to take care of onr 
brave defenders, but they were there, not seldom, to 
show that women can be soldiers in our land and times. 

The names of Annie Etherldge and others are 
dear to many regiments as the names of women who 
were noble and virtuous in character and life, and were 
brave and fearless on the field of battle. It is confi- 
dently asserted that " the number of women who ac- 
tually bore arms in the war, or who, though generally 
attending a regiment as nurses, at times engaged in the 
actual conflict, was much larger than is generally sup- 
posed, and embraces persons of all ranks of society." 
Those who from whatever cause, whether romance, 
love, or patriotism (and aU these had their influence), 
donned the male attire, and concealed their sex, are 
hardly entitled to a place in our record, since they did 
not seek to be known as women, but preferred to pass 
for men ; but aside from these there were not a few 
who, without abandoning the dress or the prerogatives 
of their sex, yet performed skilfuUy and weU the duties 
of soldiers. Among them we may name Madame Tur- 
chin, wife of Gen. Turchin, who rendered essential 
service by her coolness, her thorough knowledge of 
military science, her undaunted courage, and her skill 
in command. She is the daugliter of a Russian officer, 
and had been brought up ir the camp, where she was 
the pet and favorite of the regiment up to nearly the 
time of her marriage to Gen. Turchin, then a subordi- 
nate officer in that army. When the war commenced, 
she and her husband had been for a few years residents 



WOMEN DURING THE CrVTL WAB. 193 

of Illinois ; and, when her husband was commissioned 
colonel of a regiment of volunteers, she prepared at 
once to follow him to the field. During the march into 
Tennessee in the spring of 1862, Col. Turchin was zaken 
seriously ill, and for some days as carried in an ambu- 
lance on the route. 

Madame Turchin took command of the regiment 
during his illness, and, while ministering kindly and 
tenderly to her husband, filled his place admirably as 
commanding the regiment. Her administration was so 
judicious that no complaint or mutiny was manifested : 
and her commands were obeyed with the utmost prompt- 
ness. In the battles that followed, she was constantly 
under fire, now encouraging the men, and anon rescu- 
ing some wounded man from the place where he had 
fallen, administering restoratives, and bringing him off 
to the field hospital. ... In all the subsequent cam- 
paigns in the West, this general's wife was in the field, 
confining herself usually to ministrations of mercy to 
the wounded, but ready, if occasion required, to lead 
the troops into action, and always manifesting the most 
perfect indifference to the shot and shell or the whirring 
Minie balls that fell around her. She seemed entu-ely 
devoid of fear, and, though so constantly exposed to the 
enemy's fire, never received even a scratch. 

The Rev. A. H. Conant, who was the devoted chap- 
lain of the Nineteenth Illinois while this lady was con- 
nected with it, wrote about her to his wife, in a letter 
dated Aug. 20, 1861. The Rev. Robert CoUyer quotes 
it in his Memoir of the lamented chaplain. Mr. Conant 
wrote thus : " The few ladies — officers' wives in camp 
— are worth more than a file of soldiers in keeping 
order. I wish we could have twice as many ; but it is 
no place for a woman of delicate nerves. The most 



194 WOMEN OF, THE CENTURY. 

shocking sights, sounds, and odors of all sorts are of 
perpetual occurrence : yet a strong-minded and pure- 
hearted woman may pass through it all unharmed. Mrs. 
Turchin blooms like a fair flower in it. She reminds 
me very much of Lucy Stone Blackwell. With all the 
refinement of a lady, she has the energy and self-reh- 
ance of a man ; she feels able to take charge of herself, 
carries a nice little revolver and dagger in her belt, and 
has a dignity of manner and bearing that seourea 
respect from the roughest soldier." 

Another remarkable heroine, who, while from the 
lower walks of life, was yet faithful and unwearied in 
her labors for the relief of the soldiers who were 
wounded, and who not unfrequently took her place in 
the ranks, or cheered and encouraged the men when 
they were faltering and ready to retreat, was Bridget 
Divers, a stout robust Irishwoman who accompanied 
the First Michigan Cavalry regiment, in which her 
husband was a private, to the field, and remained 
with the regiment and the brigade to which it belonged 
until the close of the war. She became well known 
throughout the brigade, for her fearlessness and daring, 
and her skill in bringing off the wounded. Occasion- 
ally when a soldier whom she knew fell in action, after 
rescuing him if he was only wounded, she would take 
his place, and fight as bravely as the best." Mrs. Hus- 
band, in Brockett's interesting volume about the Work 
of Women in the War, tells this story of her energy 
and courage : " In one of Sheridan's grand raids, dur- 
ing the latter days of the Rebellion, she as usual rode 
with the troops night and day, wearing out several 
horses until they dropped from exhaustion. In a severe 
cavalry engagement, in which her regiment took a prom- 
inent part, her colonel was wounded, and her captain 



WOMEN DURING THE CIVIL WAR. 195 

killed. She accompanied the former to the lear, where 
she ministered to his needs ; and, when placed in the 
cars bound to City Point Hospital, she remained with 
him, giving all the relief in her power, on that fatigu- 
ing journey, although herself almost exhausted, having 
been without sleep four days and nights. After seeing 
her colonel safely and comfortably lodged in the hospi- 
tal, she took one night's rest, and returned to the front. 
Finding that her captain's body had not been recovered, 
it being hazardous to make the attempt, she resolved to 
rescue it, as ' it never should be left on rebel soU.' So, 
with her orderly for sole companion, she rode fifteen 
miles to the scene of the late conflict, found the body 
she sought, strapped it upon her horse, rode back seven 
miles to an embalmer's, where she waited whilst the 
body was embalmed ; then, again strapping it on her 
horse, she rode several miles farther to the cars, in 
which with her precious burden she proceeded to City 
Point, there obtained a rough coffin, and forwarded the 
whole to Michigan. Without any delay, Bridget 
returned to her regiment, and told some officers tha+ 
wounded men had been left on the field from which she 
had rescued her captain's body. They did not credit 
her tale : so she said, ' Furnish me some ambulances, 
and I will bring them in.' The conveyances were 
given her : she retraced her steps to the deserted battle- 
field, and soon had some eight or ten poor sufferers in 
the wagons on their way to camp. The roads were 
rough, and their moans and cries gave evidence of 
intense agony. While still some miles from their desti- 
nation, Bridget saw several rebels approaching. She 
ordered the drivers to quieken their pace, and endeav- 
ored to urge her horse forward ; but he balked, und 
refused to move. The drivers, becoming alanx^pd, 



196 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

deserted their charge, and fled to the woods, while the 
wounded men begged that they might not be left to the 
mercy of the enemy, and to suffer in Southern prisons. 
The rebels soon came up. Bridget plead with them to 
leave the sufferers unmolested ; but they laughed at her, 
took the horses from the ambulances, and such articles 
of value as the men possessed, and then dashed off the 
way they came. Poor Bridget was almost desperate, 
darkness coming on, and with no one to help her, the 
wounded men beseeching her not to leave them. For- 
tunately, an officer of our army rode up to see what the 
matter was, and soon sent horses and assistance to the 
party. When the war ended, Bridget accompanied her 
regiment to Texas, from whence she returned with them 
to Michigan ; but the attractions of army life were too 
strong to be overcome, and she has since joined one of 
the regiments of the regular army stationed on the 
plains in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains." 

Mrs. Katy Brownell, the wife of an orderly ser- 
geant of the First and afterwards of the Fifth Rhode 
Island Infantry, who like Madame Turchin was born 
in the camp, and was the daughter of a Scottish soldier 
of the British army, was another of those half-soldier 
heroines. Adopting a semi-military dress, and prac- 
tising daily with the sword and rifle, she became as 
skilful a shot and as expert a swordsman as any of the 
company of sharpshooters to which she was attached. 
Of this company she was the chosen color-bearer ; and 
asking no indulgences, she marched with the men, car- 
rying the flag, and participating in the battle as bravely 
as any of her comrades. In the first battle of Bull 
Run, she stood by her colors, and maintained her 
position till all her regiment and several others had 
retreated ; and came very near falling into the hands of 



WOMEN DURING THE CIYTL WAB. 197 

the enemy. She was in the expedition of Gen. Burn- 
side to Roanoke l&land and Newbern, and by her cool- 
ness and intrepidity saved the Fifth Rhode Island from 
being fired upon by our own troops by mistake. Her 
husband was severely wounded in an engagement at 
Newbern ; and she rescued him from his position of 
danger. He was finally pronounced unfit for service ; 
and she returned to Rhode Island with him, and 
received her discharge from the army. These are only 
a few of the many instances where women showed that 
they could and would be soldiers, warriors, defend- 
ers of the " dear old flag." It is diflBcult to ascertain 
all the facts relative to such instances ; and I am obliged 
to confess, that, in some cases, the women-warriors failed 
to maintain that unsullied character without which 
courage and daring are of little worth. But whether 
the women who fought in Revolutionary days or in 
the late war, or defended their homes in " bleeding 
Kansas," as many were obliged to do with rifle and ball, 
— whether they were honest and virtuous women, has 
nothing to do with the question of their ability to fight. 
Facts — the stern uncompromising facts of history — 
show that women have been warriors ; and what woman 
has done woman can do. So when the opponents of 
woman suffrage say, " You can't fight : therefore you 
should not vote," point quietly to the record, and say, 
" Women can fight, if they will." Heaven be praised 
that they do not all wish to fight I or earth would be a 
pandemonium at once. But Heaven be praised also, 
that, when Kansas homes were in danger, the women 
were as brave as the men ; and when rebellion aimed a 
parricidal blow at our country's flag, and all our free 
and glorious institutions were imperilled, women were 
uot wanting to prepare sanitary stores, to tend the 



198 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

dying soldiers in our hospitals, ay, and to fight, if thej 
chose, the battle of liberty. 

The WOMEN NURSES of those four years of war 
won deserved commendation. The book called " Wo- 
man's Work in the War " renders due praise to those 
devoted patriots. Rev. Dr. Bellows, referring to them 
and their noble work, in his introduction, said, " Of 
the labors of women in the hospitals and in the field, 
this book gives a far fuller history than is likely to 
be got from any other source, as this sort of service 
cannot be recorded in the histories of organized work. 
For far the largest part of this work was done by 
persons of exceptional energy and some fine natural 
aptitude for the service, which was independent of 
organizations, and hardly submitted itself to any rules 
except the impulses of devoted love for the work, — 
supplying tact, patience, and resources. The women 
who did hospital service continuously, or who kept 
themselves near the base of armies in the field, or who 
moved among the camps, and travelled with the corps, 
were an exceptional class, as rare as heroines always 
are ; a class representing no social grade, but coming 
from all ; belonging to no rank or age of Hfe in particu- 
lar, sometimes young and sometimes old, sometimes 
refined and sometimes rude ; now of fragile physical 
aspect, and then of extraordinary robustness : but, in 
all cases, women with a mighty love and earnestness in 
their hearts, — a love and pity, and an ability to show it 
forth and to labor in behalf of it, equal to that which 
in other departments of life distinguishes poets, philos- 
ophers, sages, and saints, from ordinary or average men. 
Moved by an indomitable desire to serve in person the 
victims of wounds and sickness, a few hundred women , 
impelled bv instincts which assured them of their abil- 



WOMEN DURING THE CIVrL TVA.lv. 199 

Ity to endure the hardships, overcome the obEtaeles, and 
adjust themselves to the unusual and unfeminine cir- 
cumstances in which they would be placed, made theii 
way through all obstructions at home, and at the seat 
of war, or in the hospitals, to the bedsides of the sick 
and wounded men, ... A grander collection of 
women, whether considered in their intellectual or their 
moral qualities, their heads or their hearts, I have not 
had the happiness of knowing, than the women I saw 
in the hospitals : they were the flower of their sex. 
Great as were the labors of those who superintended 
the operations at home, of collecting and preparing 
supplies for the hospitals and the field, I cannot but 
think that the women who lived in the hospitals or 
among the soldiers required a force of character and a 
glow of devotion and self-sacrifice, of a rarer kind. 
They were reaUy heroines. They conquered their fem- 
inine sensibility at the sight of blood and wounds, 
their native antipathy to disorder, confusion, and vio- 
lence ; subdued the rebellious delicacy of their more 
exquisite senses ; lived coarsely, and dressed and slept 
rudely ; they studied the caprices of men to whom 
their ties were simply human, — men often ignorant, 
feeble-minded, out of their senses, raving with pain 
and fever ; they had a still harder service, to bear with 
the pride, the official annoyance, the hardness or the 
folly, perhaps the impertinence and presumption, of 
half-trained medical men, whom the urgencies of the 
case had fastened on the service. Their position was 
always critical, equivocal, suspected, and to be justified 
only by their undeniable and conspicuous merits, their 
wisdom, patience, and proven efficiency ; justified by 
the love and reverence they exacted from the soldiers 
themselves. True, the rewards of these women were 



200 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

equal to their sacrifices. They drew their pay from a 
richer treasury than that of the United States Govern- 
ment. I never knew one of them who had had a long 
service, whose memory of the grateful looks of the 
dying, of the few 'awkward words that fell from the 
lips of thankful convalescents, or the speechless eye- 
following of the dependent soldier, or the pressure of a 
rough hand softened to womanly gentleness by long 
illness, was not the sweetest treasure of all their lives. 
Nothing in the power of the nation to give or to say 
can ever compare for a moment with the proud satisfac- 
tion which every brave soldier who risked his life for 
his country always carries in his heart of hearts ; 
and no public recognition, no thanks from a saved 
nation, can ever add any thing of much importance to 
the rewards of those who tasted the actual joy of min- 
istering, with their own hands and hearts, to the wants 
of ooi- sick and dying men." 

The hospitals established by the Empress Helena in 
the fifth century were an evidence of Christian feeling ; 
and it was the same Christianity in action, that was 
evident in Margaret Fullr ? and in Florence Nightingale 
when in Italy and in the Crimea they nursed the 
wounded soldiers. That same Christian spirit sent 
women, young and old, grave and gay, homely and 
handsome, to the hospitals where " our boys in blue " 
needed their assistance. Bravely they wrought, and often 
bravely they fell, by the side of those whom they nui-sed, 
and were the martyrs of liberty as well as they. Helen 
L. Gilson of Massachusetts was one of those. She is 
mentioned in the book " Woman's Work in the War;" 
but the sixteen pages given to her are not enough to 
show her devotion to the cause for which she sacrificed 
health ; and it is feared the life which she yielded not 



WOM31N DURING THE CIVIL WAR. 201 

long after the war was a final sacrifice, for which those 
who knew her best were least prepared. " In the sum- 
mer of 1862 Miss Gilson was for some time attached to 
the Hospital Transport Service, and was on board ' The 
Knickerbocker ' when up the Pamunky River at White 
Horse, and afterward at Harrison's Landing during the 
severe battles which marked McClellan's movement 
from the Chickahominj to the James River. Amidst 
the terrible scenes of those eventful days, the quiet 
energy, the wonderful comforting and soothing power, 
and the perfect adaptability of Miss Gilson to her 
work, were conspicuous. Whatever she did was done 
well, and so noiselessly that only the results were seen. 
When not more actively employed, she would sit by 
the bedsides of the sulfering men, and charm away their 
pain by the magnetism of her low, calm voice, and 
soothing words. She sang for them ; and kneeUug 
beside them, where they lay amidst all the agonizing 
sights and sounds of the hospital wards, and even upon 
the field of carnage, her voice would ascend in petition 
for peace, for relief, for sustaining grace in the brief 
journey to the other world, carrying with it their souls 
into the realms of an exalted faith." ^ Dr. William 
Howell Reed thus eloquently testified concerning this 
sainted nurse, who, though superior in education and 
refinement perhaps to many, was yet in her efforts for 
the soldiers a type of the ©ther faithful nurses from the 
East and West. " One afternoon just before the evac- 
uation, when the atmosphere of our rooms was close 
and foul, and all were longing for a breath of our cooler 
northern air, while the men were moaning in pain or 
were restless with fever, and our hearts were sick with 
pity for the sufferers, I heard a light step upon the 

1 Woman's Work in the Civil War, p. 136. 



202 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Btairs ; and looking up I saw a young lady enter, wlio 
brought with her such an atmosphere of calm and 
cheerful courage, so much freshness, such an expression 
of gentle, womanly sympathy, that her mere presence 
seemed to revive the drooping spirits of the men, and 
to give a new power of endurance through the long 
and painful hours of suffering. First with one, then 
at the side of another, a friendly word here, a gentle 
nod and smile there, a tender sympathy with each pros- 
trate sufferer, a sympathy which could read in his eyes 
his longing for home love and for the presence of some 
absent one, — in those few minutes hers was indeed an 
angel ministry. Before she left the room, she sang to 
them, — first some stirring national melody, then some 
Bweet or plaintive hymn to strengthen the fainting 
heart ; and I remember how the notes penetrated to 
every part of the building. Soldiers with less severe 
wounds, from the rooms above, began to crawl out into 
the entries ; and men from below crept up on their hands 
and knees to catch every note, and to receive of the 
benediction of her presence — for such it was to them. 
Then she went away. I did not know who she was ; 
but I was as much moved and melted as any soldier of 
them all. This is my first reminiscence of Helen L. 
Gilson." ^ 

Otlier writers than those mentioned — Rev. Charles 
H. Leonard in the " Ladies' Repository," and Mrs. P. M. 
Clapp in the " Old and New," and others — have also 
told the story of her noble work. Her relative, Hon. 
Frank B. Fay, under whose charge she went to the 
battle-fields, has sanctioned all their praise ; and the 
fast-falling tears of many soldiers who attended hei 
funeral, and laid their tributes of violets on her casket, 

1 Hospital Life in the Army of the Potomac. 



WOMEN DURING THE CIYTL WAR, 203 

while they reverently bent and touched with quivering 
lips the icy brow of their true friend, attest the charac- 
ter and service of this noble woman. " What radiance 
of womanly sweetness she spread around her by her 
presence, the music of her voice, her gracious loveli- 
ness I " exclaimed Rev. William H. Channing concern- 
ing her ; and added, " How raised above all frivolous 
foUy she seemed, by earnest straightforwardness, trans- 
parent sincerity, and commanding conscience 1 . . . 
Do you remember that Sunday evening in the gloaming, 
when she came with her attendant on horseback to the 
Rowe House Hospital on the plains, and at our request, 
standing at the head of the stairs, sang hymn after 
hymn to our poor wounded fellows ? They said it was 
like the voices of angels. Ay, it was so. She stands 
for us now at the head of the golden stairway to the 
heavens ; and the voice is ever, ' Nearer, my God, to 
thee, — nearer to thee.' " 

This chapter will not afford space for due record of 
similar noble service on the part of the many other 
women who were nurses ; but Clara Barton must not 
be forgotten. She performed the same work for the 
wounded soldiers, often at the risk of her life ; and when 
the war was over she organized the " Bureau of Records 
of Missing Men in the Armies of the United States," 
which was found afterwards to be an enterprise of great 
value to the Government, as well as to the friends of the 
soldiers. She induced the Government to lay out ceme- 
tery grounds at AndersonviUe, placing head-boards 
when possible to identify the graves. During the 
French and Prussian war she was in Europe, assisting 
the women of the nobility in their efforts for the 
wounded soldiers, and doing noble service for humanity 
In a foreign as she had already done in her native land. 



204 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

The name of Clara Babton will forever shine among 
the women who won a deathless fame in the days of 
war that called for loyal and philanthropic effort. She 
is a native of Massachusetts, and the daughter of one 
who served his country as a soldier in the West, in the 
early days of the Republic. 

The mere list of those who followed in the same path 
that those mentioned made glorious would extend this 
chapter to an unreasonable length : therefore the reader 
must be referred to those books which are devoted 
wholly to the record of these noble deeds, and to such 
books as the various histories of the civil war, to biog- 
raphies such as those of '' Chaplain Fuller," Lieut. 
Derby,' Ulric Dahlgren,' Major Soule,^ and the Hke, and 
to the histories which have been published of the Civil 
War. 

" Mother" Bickbrdykb of the West, Mrs. Harris, 
Mrs. Eliza C. Porter, Margaret Elizabeth 
Breckenridge, Mrs. Barker, Amy M. Bradley, 
Mrs. Arabella Griffith Barlow, Mrs. Nellie 
Maria Taylor, Mrs. Adeline Tyler, Mrs. Hol- 
STEiN, Mrs. Cordelia A. P. Harvey, Emily E. 
Parsons, Mrs. Sarah R. Johnston, Almira Fales, 
Cornelia Hancock, Mrs. Mary Morris Husband, 
(granddaughter of Robert Morris, the great financier of 
our Revolutionary war), Katherenb P. Wormelky, 
the Misses Woolsey, Anna Maria Ross, Mary J. 
Safford (now Dr. M. Safford Blake), Mrs. Lydia G. 
Parrish, Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer (whose tem- 
perance work will be hereafter mentioned). Miss Mel- 
CENLA Elliott, Mary Dwight Pettes, Louisa 

1 The Youug Captain; and Field, Gunboat, Hospital, and Prison 
Both by Phebe A. Hanaford 
« By Rev A. CaldweU. 



WOMEN DURING THE CIVIL WAR. 205 

Maertz, Mrs. Harriet R. Colfax, Clara Davis 
(now the wife of Rev. Edward Abbott of Cambridgeport, 
Mass.), Mrs. R. H. Spencer, Mrs. Harriet Footb 
Hawley, Ellen E. Mitchell, Miss Vance, and Miss 
Blackmar, Hattib a. Dada, Sitsan E. Hall, Mrs. 
Sarah P. Edson, Maria M . C. Hall, Mrs. Abby 
Hopper Gibbons and daughter Sarah H. Gibbons, 
Mrs. E. J. Russell, Mrs. Mary W. Lee, Cornelia 
M. Tompkins, Mrs. Anna C. McMeens, Mrs. Jerusha 
R. Small, Mrs. S. A. Martha Canfield, INIrs. E. 
Thomas and Miss Morris, Mrs. Shepard Wells, 
Mrs. E. C. Wetherell, Phebe Allen, Mrs. Edwin 
Greble, Mrs. Isabella Fogg, Mrs. E. E. George, 
Mrs. Charlotte E. McKay, Mrs. Fanny L. 
Ricketts, Mrs. I. S. Phelps, Mrs. Jane R. Mun- 
8ELL, — all these ladies are mentioned as heroic and 
efficient women nurses in " Woman's Work in the Civil 
War ; " and to that book the reader must be commended 
for further knowledge of them. Besides those whose 
names have been published in books, there were many 
more teachers who spent their school-vacations in the 
hospital, as did M. Jennie Miles of Waltham, Mass., 
and others ; and women who, like Mrs. Lucie F. John- 
son and sister Mrs. Sarah Spear of New Haven, and 
Mary E. Capen of Boston, and others, who were con- 
tent to be blessings to the suffering soldiers, but whose 
names have not been scattered far and wide, though 
their labors are appreciated. Surely the women of thia 
war-portion of our century are women of whom the 
nation may well be proud. 

Volumes would be required to give due credit to 
such women as Abby W. May of Boston, and her co- 
laborers, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, then of Chicago 
(though Boston born), and Mrs. A. M. Hoge, and their 



206 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

assistants, who organized aid-societies, and solicited 
received, and forwarded supplies to the hospital, devot- 
ing most or the whole of their time to this work. Mrs. 
Maby a. Livermobb did essential service, both in 
hospitals, in aid-societies, bj conducting fairs, and by 
her eloquent voice and active pen, addressing audiences 
in such a way as to gain all she asked for the soldiers, 
and wielding, through the paper of which she and her 
patriotic husband were editors, an influence which was 
wide extended, in behalf of loyalty and freedom. 
" During the whole war, even in the busiest times, not 
a week was passed that she did not publish sometvhere 
two or three columns at the least. Letters, incidents, 
appeals, editorial correspondence, — always something 
useful, interesting, — head and hands were always busy ; 
and the small implement, ' mightier than the sword,' 
was never allowed to rest unused in the inkstand. 
... In the autumn of 1863, the great North-western 
Sanitary Fair, the first of that series of similar fairs 
which united the North in a bond of large and wide- 
spread charity, occurred. It was Mrs. Livermore who 
suggested and planned the first fair, which netted almost 
one hundred thousand dollars to the Sanitary Commis- 
sion. Mrs. Hoge had at first no confidence in the pro 
iect ; but she afterward joined it, and, giving it her 
earnest aid, helped to carry it to a successful conclusion. 
It was indeed a giant plan ; and it may be chiefly cred- 
ited, from its inception to its fortunate close, to these 
indefatigable and skilful workers."^ The biographical 
sketches of Mrs. Hoge and Mrs. Livermore in Dr. 
Brockett's book are full of interest. A brief sketch is 
there also of Miss May, a woman of rare executive 
ability. With characteristic modesty she once wrote 

1 Woman's Work in the Civil War. 



WOMEN DURING THE CIVIL WAR. 207 

to a lady who asked for items and names wl: ere with to 
make due record of the work of women in New Eng- 
land, " It was necessary that some one should be at the 
head of the work, and this place it was my blessed 
privilege to fill. But it was only an accidental promi- 
nence ; and I should regret more than I can express to 
you, to have this accident of position single me out in 
any such manner as you propose from the able, devoted, 
glorious women all about me, whose sacrifices and 
faithfulness and nobleness I can hardly conceive of, 
much less speak of, and never approach to. As far as 
I am personally concerned, I would rather your notice 
of our part of the work should be of ' New England 
women.' We shared the privileges of the work ; not 
always equally : that would be impossible ; but we 
stood side by side through it all, as New England 
women ; and, if we are to be remembered hereafter, it 
ought to be under that same good old title, and in one 
goodly company. When I begin to think of individual 
cases, I grow full of admiration, and wish I could tell 
you of many a special woman ; but the number soon 
becomes appalling, — your book would be overrun, and 
all or most of those who would have been omitted 
might well have been there too." 

This is just the state of mind in which the brief 
record of woman's work in the war has been penned for 
this chapter. If a book could not contain them, how 
much less can one chapter 1 The recording angel, thank 
Heaven 1 knows them all ; and their " labor was not in 
vain in the Lord." Rev. Dr. T. M. Eddy, in his intro- 
duction to " The Boys in Blue," Mrs. Hoge's thrilling 
book, wherein she gives the credit so largely due to the 
" rank and file " of the army of the Union, truly declares, 
" It will be a wonderful story, if ever some one shall 



208 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

write, as it should be written, ' Woman's Deeds in the 
War,' and tell, as it should be told, the story of her 
heroic toil. Enough is known, enough has been told, 
to excite the world's admiration ; but much remains 
untold." 

When the war was over, there was a work for the 
women of this century to do, in training the freedmen, 
and especially their children ; and the noble women who 
had been nurses, and many who had not, enlisted in 
this new enterprise, with the same Christian zeal and 
self-sa'^rifice that they had shown in the hospitals. The 
niece of the poet Whittier was among them, wearing a 
name that is dear to all lovers of freedom, because hia 
lyrics have so earnestly plead for the slave. Anna 
Gardner was there, the teacher of colored children on 
her native island of Nantucket, when the abolitionists 
were ostracised. She taught one of the first normal 
schools ever established for colored girls, and doubtless 
did grand service in training for the negroes of the 
South teachers of their own race. The New England 
Commission employed about seventy teachers, twenty- 
two in Virginia; and most of these were women who 
were zealous and self-sacrificing, and wi-ought an untold 
amount of good for the freedmen. 

The American Tract Society has issued a little 
volume as a deserved tribute to one Christian woman, — 
a free colored woman, whose father was a white man, — 
Maby S. Peake, who was the first teacher at Fortress 
Monroe. After long years of silent and, as many felt, 
unrighteous ignoring of the question of slavery, the 
American Tract Society at last gave the meed of praise 
to Christian effort without regard to race or color 
Among the ladies distinguished for service among the 
freedmen, is Mrs. Frances D. Gage, a lady of Ohio 



WOMEN DURING THE CrVTL WAR. 209* 

birth, but of New England parentage. Early the wife 
of a lawyer who was an abolitionist, she shared with 
him his hatred of oppression. Her family of eight 
children necessarily took much of her time : yet she was 
able to use her graceful pen, and dealt powerful blows 
for freedom, temperance, and other reforms. She fought 
the. battle of an abolitionist anew when she removed 
from Ohio to St. Louis. She has lived the hfe of a 
philanthropist ; and when the war broke out she gave 
voice and pen to the right, editing, si)eaking, and writ- 
ing ever till the cry of the freedmen reached her, and 
she found herself free from other cares, and found her 
mission among them. Four of her own boys were in 
the Union army ; and in the autumn of 1862 she went 
without appointment or salary to Port Royal, where 
and at other places near she labored fourteen months. 
She returned North in 1863, and lectured on her expe- 
riences among the freedmen, rousing others to labor 
also for their welfare. This all winter, wearying and 
unpaid work for herself, but successful as far as the 
cause was concerned ; and then in summer down the 
Mississippi as the unsalaried agent of the Western 
Sanitary Commission. Her name will forever stand 
among the noble, faithful women of the first century 
who " remembered those in bonds as bound with them," 
who cared for the soldier and the freedman, and to 
whom our God has already said, " Well done 1 " 

Mrs. Lucy Gaylord Powers was another true 
friend of the soldier and the freedman. " Her last 
active benevolent work was commenced in 1863, — the 
foundation of an asylum at the capital for the freed 
orphans and destitute aged colored women whom the 
war and the Proclamation of Emancipation had thrown 
upon the care of the benevolent." But she was in 



210 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

feeble health for years, and died on the bosom of the 
lordly Hudson, as she was going in the steamer to 
Albany, on the 20th of July, 1863. " After her life 
of usefulness, her name at last stands high upon the 
roll of martyr- women whom this war has made." ' 
Mabia Rullann of Massachusetts proved herself 
worthy of her kinship to the first secretary of the board 
of education isi that Commonwealth, who finished his 
noble career as president of Antioch College, Ohio, by 
her faithful service as a teacher and philanthropic 
worker in Helena, Ark., and afterward as a teacher of 
colored people in Washington and Georgetown. Sarah 
J. Haqar was one of the heroic nurses, and served by 
the side of her mother, Mrs. C. C. Hagar, and after- 
wards taught among the freedmen at Vicksburg, where 
she died, giving her life for the sacred cause. Mrs. 
Josephine R. Griffen was a heroine, who was always 
an advocate for freedom, was faithful to the soldier 
boys when her other duties in Washington allowed, and 
finally took charge of the good work for freedmen in 
that vicinity. One of the philanthropic methods she 
pursued in their behalf was the finding of good places 
for domestic service for them, and taking a company 
from time to time to various Northern and Western 
cities. " The cost of these expeditions she provided 
almost entirely from her own means ; her daughters, who 
have inherited their mother's spirit, helping as far as 
possible in her noble work. She has now gone to her 
rest. Further mention will be made of her among the 
reformers. " There were great numbers of other ladies 
equally efficient in the freedmen's schools and homes in 
the Atlantic States ; but their work was mainly imder 
the direction of Freedmen's Relief, and subsequently 

1 Woman's Work in the Civil War 



WOMEN DURING THE CIVIL WAR. 211 

of the American Union Commission ; and it is not easy 
to obtain from them accounts of the labors of particular 
individuals. The record of the women who have 
labored faithfully, and not a few of them to the loss of 
their health or lives, in work which was in some re- 
spects even more repulsive to the natural sensibilities 
than that in the hospitals, if smaller in numbers, is not 
less honorable than that of their sisters in the hos- 
pitals." * 

Reluctantly the theme is concluded ; for " the half 
has not been told " concerning the work of women 
during the war for the soldiers, and during and since 
the war for the freedmen. The aeons of the future 
alone can give the opportunity for a full history of their 
noble work and their blessed influence. It is a tale of 
self-sacrifice and of heroism. And there were heroic 
women. North and South ; women loyal to the Union, 
who sacrificed and toiled for the " dear old flag." 
Henry C. Watson compiled a volume in 1852, called 
" Heroic Women of History." Had he waited a decade, 
he could have written three of the same octavo size, 
and not have exhausted the theme. He declares in his 
preface, " An heroic woman is almost an object of wor- 
ship." Then there are many shrines to-day for the 
devotees of physical and moral heroism ; for North and 
South, the women of the first century were brave, 
patriotic, and heroic. 

The women of Gettysburg " won for themselves a 
high and honorable record for their faithfulness to the 
flag, their generosity and their devotion to the wounded. 
Chief among these, since she gave her life for the cause, 
we must reckon Mrs. Jennie Wade, who continued her 
generous work of baking bread for the Union army, till 

^ Woman's Work in the Civil War.j 



212 WOMEN OF TECE CENTURY. 

a rebel shot killed her instantly. A rebel officer oi 
high rank was killed almost at the same moment near 
her door ; and the rebel troops, hastily constructing a 
rude coffin, were about to place the body of their com- 
mander in it for burial, when, in the swaying to and fro 
of the armies, a Union column drove them from the 
ground, and, finding Mrs. Wade dead, placed her in the 
coffin intended for the rebel officer. In that coffim she 
was buried the next day, amidst the tears of hundreds 
who knew her courage and kindness of heart. . . . Miss 
Carrie Sheads, the principal of Oak Ridge Female 
Seminary, is also deserving of a place in our record, for 
her courage, humanity, and true womanly tact. . . . 
Another young lady of Gettysburg, Miss Amelia Har- 
mon, a pupil of Miss Sheads, displayed a rare heroism 
under circumstances of trial." * 

The bravery and patriotism of Barbara Frietchie 
has been fitly told by Whittier ; and the heroism of Mrs. 
Hetty M. McEwen, who would not permit the rebels to 
tear down the dear old flag that waved above her dying 
son, has been finely told by Mrs. Lucy H. Hooper. 

" The loyal women of Richmond were a noble band. 
Amid obloquy, persecution, and in some cases impris- 
onment (one of them was imprisoned for nine months 
for aiding Union prisoners), they never faltered in their 
allegiance to the old flag, nor in their sympathy and 
services to the Union prisoners at Libby and Belle Isle 
and Castle Thunder. With the aid of twenty-one loyal 
white men in Richmond, they raised a fund of thirteen 
thousand dollars in gold, to aid Union prisoners, while 
their gifts of clothing, food, and luxuries, were of much 
greater value. Some of these ladies were treated with 
great cruelty by the rebels, and finally driven from the 

1 WoTTiaTi'8 Work in the Civil War. 



"WOMEN DURING THE CIVIL WAR. 213 

city ; but no one of them ever proved false to loyalty. 
In Charleston, too, hotbed of the Rebellion as it was, 
there was a Union league, of which the larger propor- 
tion were women, some of them wives or daughters of 
prominent rebels, who dared every thing, even their life, 
their liberty, and their social position, to render aid and 
comfort to the Union soldiers, and to facilitate the 
return of a government of liberty and law. Had we 
space, we might fill many pages with the heroic deeds 
of these noble women." ^ 

Abruptly the chapter must close, for it is simply im- 
possible to do justice to all the noble Union women. 
God knows them all, and will one day say to each, " In- 
asmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these my 
brethren, ye did it unto me." 

a Work In the ClvU War. 




CHAPTER VII. 

LITERARY WOMEN. 

Hannah Adams — Catherine M. Sedgwick — Catherine E. Beecher — 
Sarali J. Hale — Margaret Fuller D'Ossoli — Adeline D. T. Whit- 
ney — Harriet Beecher Stowe — Frances Dana Gage — Julia Ward 
Howe — Elizabeth Stuart Phelps — Louisa M. Alcott, &c. 



" No good of worth sublime will Heaven permit 
To light on man, as from the passing air: 
The lamp of genius, though by Nature ht. 
If not protected, pruned, and fed with care, 
Soon dies, or runs to waste with fitful glare ; 
And learning is a plant that spreads and towers 
Slow as Columbia's aloe." 

Carlos Wilcox. 

" What thou seest, write in a book." — Rev. i. 2. 

THE eloquent Bethune expressed the truth in regard 
to woman's worth in the fiekl of modern literature, 
where she has certainly won a place both large and 
high, when he said, " What the elevation of woman has 
done for the reform of social manners, her educated 
mind is doing for our books." 

America has furnished her full share of women useful 

214 



LITERARY WOMEN. 215 

and notable with the pen ; and it is among the elements 
of her centennial glory, that her list of those who have 
written wisely and with an attractive pen is long and 
bright. But again the brevity which is needful forbids 
all the praise which is due. A portion only of the stars 
in the galaxy of women who love literature, and have 
been successful in the paths of literary endeavor, can 
be mentioned here. 

Abigail Adams won the laurels which no other 
president's wife ever won, when she ' wrote her " Let- 
ters," albeit she did not write them for publication ; yet, 
being published in after-years, they showed her worthy 
of a place among the " women of letters " in our land. 

Hannah Adams, the daughter of a farmer in Med- 
field, Mass., was born in 1755 ; but she wrote for many 
years after this century commenced, and belongs among 
its literary women, as one who has helped others who 
have since arisen to fame. She left off the making of 
lace for a living, in order to prepare young men for col- 
lege ; and her fame as a teacher was great. Yet she is 
more known by her books, " The View of Religion " 
(a history of different sects), " The History of New 
England," " The Evidences of the Christian Religion," 
and a " History of the Jews," which latter is now con- 
sidered the most valuable of her productions. She was 
a childlike and eccentric person. Mrs. Child, in her 
" Letters from New York," devotes a chapter to anec- 
dotes concerning her. Absent-minded but kind-hearted, 
with literary ability but no business capacity, she would 
have suffered in her old age but for three wealthy 
gentlemen of Boston, who settled an annuity upon her. 
She died in 1832, aged seventy-six, and was the first 
person buried in Mount Auburn. " She was warmly 
cherished and esteemed for the singular excellence, 



216 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

purity, and simplicity of her character. . . . Through 
life, the gentleness of her manners, and the sweetness 
of her temper, were childlike. She trusted all her cares 
to the control of her heavenly Father ; and she did not 
trust in vain." ^ 

Mrs. Sigourney, and other American women who have 
won distinction with the pen, but who have written 
more verse than prose, or are better known as poets, 
will be mentioned in another chapter. A writer in the 
" North American Review " ^ declares, that " it is a for- 
tunate thing for any country, that a portion of its litera- 
ture should fall into the hands of the female sex ; because 
their influence in every walk of letters is almost sure 
to be powerful and good." Such has surely been the 
influence of our American women, who have written 
books the world will not soon stop reading. 

Catherine M. Sedgwick was one of these. She 
was born in Stockbridge, Mass.; and her first book 
appeared in 1822. It was called " The New England 
Tale," and was received so favorably that in 1827 she 
published a novel in two volumes, called " Redwood." 
This was republished in England, and translated into 
French and Italian. She then produced her most popu- 
lar tale, " Hope Leslie ; or. Early Times in America." 
Then came " Clarence," " Le Bijou," and " The Lin- 
woods ; or, Sixty Years since in America." Several 
volumes for the young, and a collection of her tales, then 
met the public eye ; and in 1840 she published " Letters 
from Abroad to Kindred at Home," and shortly after a 
" Life of Lucretia M. Davidson." Miss Sedgwick was 
a frequent contributor to the periodicals of her day ; and 
her fugitive sketches were afterward collected to enhance 

1 Woman's Record, by Mrs. Hale. 
« Vol. XTvi. p. 403. 



LITERARY WOMEN. 217 

the value of a new edition of her works. A writer in 
the "National Portrait Gallery," with many other words 
of commendation, says, " Her style is peculiarly good : 
equally free from stiffness and negligence, it is more 
distinguished by delicacy and grace than strength ; and 
the purity of her English may afford a model to some 
of our learned scholars." She lived a useful life in 
philanthropic as well as literary ways, until 1867, when 
sh2 passed away. Mary E. Dewey has written hei 
biography in a charming manner. Mrs. Kemble writes, 
" Her memory now remains to me, as that of one of the 
most charming, most amiable, and most excellent persons 
I have ever known." The world is blessed, when such 
a woman uses the pen. 

Margaret Fuller D'Ossoli was, many think, the 
grandest woman of the nineteenth century. She was 
certainly one of the most cultured which America ever 
sent to the Old World, at the time she went, — in 1846. 
Born 23d of May, 1810, in Massachusetts, of educated 
and refined parentage, she gave herself to study with a 
thoroughness and enthusiasm seldom if ever equalled. 
" Few eminent scholars, struggling in youth for univer- 
sity honors, and preparing for a career of exclusive 
literary labor, have made such attainments, in the same 
period of life, in philosophy and various learning, as 
Margaret Fuller accomplished long before she was 
twenty." ^ Reverses of fortune, following her father's 
death, led her to become the teacher of the youngei 
members of the family, and finally to teach others. 

She taught Latin and French in the school which A. 
Bronson Alcott had established in Boston, and assisted 
private pupils also in the study of various languages. 
An evening of each week in this busy period was given 

I Portrait Gallery of Eminent Men and Women. 



218 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

to reading German authors to Dr. Channing. She soon 
after became principal of a school in Providence, R.I. 
In 1839 she opened classes for conversation in Boston, 
which were largely attended and became widely famous. 
There was more of excellent lecturing on her part than 
of conversation on the part of her class. " Greek 
Mythology " was one of the principal themes. Five 
winter seasons these oral lectures continued ; the fine 
arts, ethics, education, with kindred topics, supplying 
the themes. Margaret's pen was busy also. She trans- 
lated from the German several works ; and in 1840 she 
was engaged in furnishing articles for " The Dial, a Mag- 
azine for Literature, Philosophy, and Religion," which 
was continued quarterly till 1844. The first two vol- 
umes she edited. "Several of her best articles were 
written for it ; among which may be particularly men- 
tioned a judicious appreciation of Goethe, full of insight 
and sagacity, in the fifth number ; and a finely conceived 
discussion of what is called the woman question, in a 
paper entitled ' The Great Lawsuit,' in the fourth vol- 
ume, which was subsequently developed into a volume 
bearing the title, ' Woman in the Nineteenth Century,' 
a highly poetical as well as practical treatment of the 
subject in many of its aspects, with illustrations drawn 
from the heroism and literature of all lands." ' In the 
autimin of 1844 Miss Fuller accepted an offer to write 
for " The New York Tribune," and removed to the resi- 
dence of Horace Greeley. Twenty-five years afterward 
the talented wife of Mr. Greeley bore ample testimony 
(in conversation with the author of this volume) to her 
genius as a writer, and her attractions as a woman. She 
lived in the hearts of those who knew her, though they 
may not always have been her equals intellectually ; 

1 Portrait Gallery, &c. 



LITBBAKY WOMEN. 219 

and those who did come near to her in sympathy for 
reforms or culture always held her in highest esteem. 
Of her sojourn in foreign lands ; her marriage ttere ; hei 
labors in Italian hospitals ; the birth of her only child, 
whose remains rest in Mount Auburn ; her sad shipwreck 
on Fire Island beach on the IGth of July, 1850, — one 
may read in the admirable memoir prepared by three of 
her friends, — Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Freeman 
Clarke, and William H. Channing. Her memoir in two 
volumes, and her works in four, form a valuable set of 
books for any library, and are a better monument to her 
worth and genius than any granite shaft or marble 
statue could be. Her name lives in the history of 
American literature, an inspiration to the student, a 
strength to the reformer, one of the noble women of 
whom America may well be proud. 

Emily Chubbuck Judson, well known by her nom 
de plume of Fanny Forrester, was a literary woman who 
struggled upward through circumstances of poverty 
and discouragement to a high place among the writers 
of our land. She was born in Eaton, Madison County, 
N.Y., Aug. 22, 1817. When only eleven she worked in 
a woollen factory, going to the district school when the 
mill was closed in winter. She engaged in mantua-mak- 
ing, while she studied at other hours ; helped to take 
charge of the house with the boarders, by which the 
family gained a livelihood ; rose at two o'clock to wash 
before school-time some days, and sat up till two o'clock 
studying on other occasions. Finally, when only fifteen, 
she obtained a situation as teacher, and thenceforward 
she taught and wrote, till her name became familiar to 
the patrons of the Utica Female Seminary as a teacher, 
and to the readers of " The New Mirror " as a writer of 
sprightly prose or touching verse. Her first book was 



220 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY, 

" Charles Linn," for which she only received fifty-one 
dollars, the proceeds of an edition of fifteen hundred. 
Other juvenile works were issued by the Baptist Sun- 
day School Publishing House ; and with the proceeds, 
and out of her small salary of one hfindred and fifty 
dollars and board, she saved enough in four years to 
buy a house and garden for her parents at Hamilton, 
thus gratifying the filial instincts of her noble nature. 
Her magazine stories were published in book-form, with 
the title of " Alderbrook," the book by which she was 
mostly known until, in 1846, she became the wife of the 
eminent missionary, Adoniram Judson. She then pre- 
pared the " Memoir of Sarah Boardman Judson," and 
for a season labored in a foreign land, learning the Bur- 
mese language. In 1847 her daughter was bom, and 
her poem, " Our Bird," came into its pleasant form. 

" There's not in Ind a lovlier bird, 

Broad earth owns not a happier nest. 
O Grod I thou hast a fountain stirred, 
Whose waters nevermore shall rest. ' ' 

The illness of Dr. Judson led to his trying a sea-voy- 
age ; but he had to leave her in that far-off land, to give 
birth to a son who did not survive, and was himself 
buried in the deep. Her health imperatively required 
return to her native land, and in October, 1851 she arrived 
in Boston. " Her few remaining years were largely occu- 
pied in devotion to the memory of her husband. She 
rendered important assistance to Dr. Wayland in the 
preparation of the memoirs. A collection of her poems 
entitled ' The Olio ' appeared in 1852. She also wrote 
other occasional poems ; a book entitled ' The Kathayan 
Slave,' and her thoughts reverting to the past, a touching 
memorial of her deceased sisters, with the simple title, 



LITER ART WOMEN. 221 

' My Two Sisters.' Calmly meeting the emi which she 
had long foreseen, she died with Christian hope and res- 
ignation, at her home in Hamilton, N.Y., June 1, 1854."* 

Harriet Beecher Stowe is a name that will live 
as long as there are lovers of freedom and haters of slavery 
in our broad land or the world. She is the third daugh- 
ter and sixth child of Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher and 
Roxanna Foote, and was born in Litchfield, Conn., 14th 
of June, 1812. Her mother died when she was but 
four years old. Two years more, and her father brought 
a gentle step-mother, whose influence was excellent 
upon the future writer. Harriet was sent to a famous 
academy in her native place at the age of seven, and 
continued there till twelve. She was a diligent reader, 
even at that early age, and the novels of Sir Walter 
Scott were among her favorite books. She profited 
greatly by the instruction given in the art of compo- 
sition, and in her twelfth year was appointed one of the 
writers for the annual exliibition. " The question pro- 
posed was, ' Can the immortality of the soul be proved 
by the light of nature ? ' in which she took the nega- 
tive. ' I remember,' says she, ' the scene, to me so 
eventful. The hall was crowded with all the literati of 
Litchfield. Before them all our compositions were read 
aloud. When mine was read, I noticed that father, who 
was sitting on the right of Mr. Brace, brightened, and 
looked interested; and at the close I heard him say, 
" Who wrote that composition ? " — " Your daughter, 
sir," was the answer. It was the proudest moment of 
my life. There was no mistaking father's face when he 
was pleased ; and to have interested him was past all 
juvenile triumphs.' " 

She married Rev. Dr. C. E. Stowe in 1836, and 

I Eminent Portraits, &c. 



222 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

resided for some time in Cincinnati, where he was a 
professor in the Lane Theological Seminary. Here slie 
felt the pressure of poverty ; and the struggle to care for 
a growing family with limited means led to the use of 
her pen. She wrote stories for periodicals and Sunday- 
school books. In 1851 she wrote for " The National 
Era " the story of Uncle Tom. " It was shortly after 
published in Boston, with the title, ' Uncle Tom's 
Cabin ; or. Life among the Lowly.' Its success was 
immediate and extraordinary. . . . Within a few months 
of its publication, one hundred and fifty thousand copies 
of the work were sold in the United States, and its success 
abroad was quite as remarkable. The first London 
edition, published in May, 1852, was not large, . . . but 
in the following September the London publishers fur- 
nished to one house ten thousand copies per day for 
about four weeks, and had to employ one thousand per- 
sons in preparing copies to supply the general demand. 
By the end of the year, a million of copies had been 
sold in England. It was at once translated into most 
of the languages of Europe. Mr. Allibone, in his 
' Dictionary of Authors,' enumerates nearly forty trans- 
lations in seventeen different foreign tongues. ... In 
addition to this, it was dramatized in twenty different 
forms, and acted in the leading cities of Europe and 
America. The sale of the work in the United States, 
including the German version, has reached, it has been 
calculated, half a million of copies. In England, in the 
absence of copyright, it had the advantage of being re- 
produced in some twenty editions, ranging in price from 
ten shillings to sixpence a copy. A popular edition of 
large circulation was illustrated by George Cruikshank. 
As a vindication of the essential truthfulness of the 
pictures of slave-life in her book, Mrs. Stowe snbae- 



LITERARY WOMEN. 223 

quently published a volume entitled A Key to Uncle 
Tom's Cabin,' a collection of facts on the subject, drawn 
from Southern authorities."^ 

" Uncle Tom's Cabin " was Mrs. Stowe's chef-d'oeuvre^ 
but she has since written other works of great interest. 
Her " Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands " is an attract- 
ive sketch of what she saw and enjoyed in Europe in 
1853. Another anti-slavery novel, " Dred, a Tale of the 
Great Dismal Swamp," met with a sale of three hundred 
thousand copies in England and America. Mrs. Stowe 
has written many graphic sketches of New England life 
in earlier periods, wliich are extremely popular ; among 
which " The Minister's Wooing," " The Pearl of Orr's 
Island," and " Oldtowu Folks," are chief in size and 
mterest. She also wrote for " The Atlantic Monthly " 
and " The Cornhill Magazine," to be published simul- 
taneously, an Italian romance, " Agnes of Sorrento." 
A volume appearing in 1869, concerning Lord and Lady 
Byron, awoke much controversy. Since then she has 
written only moral tales and stories for the young, among 
them " Palmetto Sketches," descriptive of Florida, 
where she resides each winter. Mrs. Stowe rightly 
holds a very high place among the literary women of 
our first century ; and her writings had undoubtedly a 
wide and marked influence, inducing those political 
changes and military events which preceded the emanci- 
pation of the slave in this country. 

Sarah Jane Leppincott nee Clarke, widely known 
as Grace Greenwood, born in Onondaga, N.Y., is of Pil- 
grim stock. She commenced her career as an authoress 
by writing letters to the editors of " The New Mirror," 
and using the alliterative nom de plume of " Grace 
Greenwood." The brilliant letter-writer, who wrote 

1 Eminent Portrsdts 



224 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

also earnest, impassioned poetry, became at once a favor 
ite, and such she has continued to be. A volume of 
her prose writings, called " Greenwood Leaves," was 
published in 1850, and a volume of " Poems " in 1851, 
followed by a book for children called "My Pets." She 
has also published a book called " Haps and Mishaps of 
a Tour in Europe." In later years she has been suc- 
cessfully active as a lecturer and reader, and is now in 
Europe, writing readable letters to "The New York 
Times," which are eagerly perused all over the land. 
She is verifying her own words, — 

" Oh, no! I never will grow old, 
Though years on years roll by, 
And silver o'er my dark brovra hair, 
And dim my laughing eye. 

They shall not shrivel up my soul, 

Nor dim the glance of love 
My heart casts on this world of ours, 

And lifts to that above." 

Elizabeth F. Ellet, has used her pen nobly and 
successfully. She was born on the shore of Lake 
Ontario, the daughter of Dr. William A. Lummus, and 
grand-daughter of Gen. Maxwell, a Revolutionary offi- 
cer. No wonder that in after years she wrote three 
excellent volumes telling of " The Women of the Revo 
lution." She wrote also the book called " Queens of 
American Society," and a voliune concerning " Women 
Artists " of all nations. From these three books have 
been gleaned many of the facts and incidents which 
adorn these pages. She wrote poetry as well as prose ; 
and a volume of her poems, original and translations, 
was published in 1835. She contributed largely to 
various periodicals, including " The North American 
Review," for which women did not usually write. In 



LITERARY WOMEN. 225 

1850 she published the " Domestic History of the 
American Revolution," designed to exhibit the spirit of 
that period, to portray, as far as possible the social and 
domestic condition of the colonists, and the state of 
feeling among the people during the war. Though 
dealing with the same great events which developed 
the peculiar characteristics of the " Women of the Re- 
vlution," this last work is not a continuation, but a 
novel and interesting view of that tremendous struggle, 
which resulted in gaining for America a place among 
nations." She has also written " Pictures from Bible 
History ; " and it is hoped has not yet laid aside her 
facile pen, which has been used in producing nearly all 
varieties of literature. 

Emma C. Embury, nSe Manley, was born in New 
York City, and began to write when very young ; her 
first articles appearing in the periodicals of the day 
under the name of " lanthe." Her first volume was 
published about the year 1828, " Guido, and other 
Poems ; " but the works which have gained her most 
celebrity are those written to assist in the education of 
the young, especially of girls, — " Constance Latimer, the 
Blind Girl," " The Waldorf Family," " Nature's Gems, 
or American Wild Flowers," and " Glimpses of Home 
Life." Besides these books, she has written many tales 
and poems for the magazines, but more prose than verse. 

Harriet Farley, well and widely known as the 
editor of " The Lowell Offering," the magazine of the 
factory girls of Lowell, is now Mrs Donlevy. Her 
father was a Congregational clergyman of Claremont, 
N.H., with a family of ten children ; and she was 
therefore early called to assist in her own maintenance, 
and soon (by entering the cotton-mill, where the la^ 
borers were almost wholly American girls of good 



226 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

families iu those early days) was enabled to assist in 
the liberal education of a brother. Largely through 
the influence of Rev. Abel C. Thomas of Lowell, the 
factory girls were induced to use the pen as well as 
tend the loom ; and the magazine was started which has 
since gained world-wide celebrity, though it did not 
endure. Miss Farley became the proprietor, and wrote 
as follows : " I do all the publishing, editing, canvassing ; 
and, as it is bound in my office, I can, in a hurry, help 
fold, cut covers, stitch, &c. I have a little girl to assist 
me in the folding, stitching, &c.; the rest, after it 
comes from the printer's hand, is all my own work. I 
employ no agents, and depend upon no one for assist- 
ance. My edition is four thousand." A sketch of the 
life and labors of this remarkable toiler is given in 
Mrs. Hale's book ; * and from it we learn that English 
critics acknowledged the merit of the work, as selec- 
tions from the " Offering " were published in London 
in 1849, entitled " Mind among the Spindles." " The 
Lowell Offering " was first issued in 1841, and in 1843 
Miss Harriet F. Curtis, was associate editor. Both 
were literary women, of whom America as well as 
Lowell had reason to be proud ; for they showed the 
power of that genius which could not be repressed by 
the conditions of a laborious life with the hands as 
well as brain. 

Eliza Lee Follen was a miscellaneous writer, 
whose maiden name was Cabot, and who was born in 
Boston, and in 1828 married a German, Professor of 
German in Harvard College. Her principal works are, 
" Sketches of Married Life," " The Skeptic," and a 
"■ Life of Charles Follen," and several books for the 
young. " She has also edited the works of her late 

1 Mrs. Hale's "Woman r H«c.ord." 



LITERARY WOMEN. 227 

husband, in four volumes, besides contributing to va- 
rious literary periodicals, and has written a volume of 
poems, which appeared in 1839." ^ 

Carolinb Gllman, born in Boston, on the spot 
where the Mariner's Church now stands, was the 
daughter of Samuel Howard, who died before she was 
three years old. An interesting autobiographical 
sketch of this lady, who still lives on earth, may be 
found in Mrs. Hale's " Record of Distinguished 
Women." She says, " ' At sixteen I wrote " Jephthah's 
Rash Vow," and was gratified by the request of an 
introduction from Miss Hannah Adams, the erudite, 
the simple-minded, and gentle-mannered author of 
" The History of Religions." The next effusion of 
mine was " Jairus's Daughter," which I inserted by 
request in " The North American Review," then a 
miscellany. ... In 1882 I commenced editing " The 
Rose-Bud," a hebdomadal, the first juvenile newspaper^ 
if I mistake not, in the Union. From this periodical 
I have reprinted at various times the following vol- 
umes, " Recollections of a New England House- 
keeper," " Recollections of a Southern Matron," "Ruth 
Raymond, or Love's Progress," " Poetry of Travelling 
in the United States," " Tales and Ballads," " Verses 
of a Life Time," *' Letters of Eliza Wilkinson during 
the Invasion of Charleston." Also several volumes for 
youth, now collected in one, and recently published as 
" Mrs. Gilman's Gift-Book." '"..." The character of 
Mrs. Gilman's writings," says Mrs. Hale, " both prose 
and poetry, is that of a healthy imagination, and cheer- 
ful mind, just what her reminiscences would lead us to 
expect." 

Sarah Josepha Hale, has given to the world one 

I Mra. Hale's Woman's Record. 



228 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

book which manifests great industry on her part ; and 
which calls for gratitude on the part of many readers 
who find it multum in parvo^ the book " Woman's 
Record," a large octavo of 918 pages, being " Bio- 
graphical Sketches of Distinguished Women," in all 
ages and nations : a fine encyclopaedia, marred in some 
instances by the expression of opinions narrow and 
bigoted, but in the main accurate and useful. 

Mrs. Hale was born in Newport, N.H. Her hus- 
band, a young lawyer, dying, left her with five children 
to support ; and she had recourse to her pen, and 
proved her genius as a writer, her ability as an editor. 
She edited for ten years •'• The Ladies' Magazine," of 
Boston ; and when it was united to the " Ladies' Book," 
of Philadelphia, in 1837, she still continued its editor. 
Her first book, " Northwood," was reprinted in 
London, under the title of " A New England Tale." 
Among her published works are " Sketches of Ameri- 
can Character," " Traits of American Life," " Flora's 
Interpreter," " The Way to Live Well, and to be Well 
while we Live," " Grosvenor, a Tragedy," Alice Ray, 
a Romance in Rhyme," " Harry Guy, the Widow's 
Son " (the last two were written for charitable pur- 
poses, and the proceeds given away accordingly). 
" Thi-ee Hours, or the Vigil of Love, and other 
Poems," published in 1848 ; " A Complete Dictionary 
of Poetical Quotations, containing Selections from the 
Wiitings of the Poets of England and America." This 
volume contains nearly 600 double-column large 
octavo pages, and is the most complete work of the 
kind in the English language. Many writers have 
found themselves greatly indebted to Mrs. Hale for 
this volume ; and by her " Woman's Record," many of 
the pages of this book have been enriched. Amid all 



L.ITERARY WOMEN. 229 

the other laurels she has won as a writer, she haa 
recently been declared the author of the famous juve- 
nile poem, — 

" Mary had a little lamb." 

Caroline Lee Hentz was born in Lancaster, Mass. 
For many years she was a teacher in the West and 
South. " Her first work was her drama, ' De Lara, or 
the Moorish Bride;' for which she obtained the prize 
of five hundred dollars and a gold medal, offered in 
Philadelphia for the best original tragedy. Other 
tragedies, written by her, have been acted, but are 
unpublished. She is widely known by her popular 
prose tales and novelties, which have appeared in our 
different periodicals. " Aunt Patty's Scrap-Bag," and 
" The Mob Cap," which obtained the prize of two 
hundred dollars, have been almost universally read. 
Some of her other stories are " Aunt Mercy," " The 
Blind Girl," " The Pedlar," " The Village Anthem," 
and a novel called " Lovell's Folly." 

Caroline M. Kirkland was born in New York, 
wrote in 1839 her first book, " A New Home, Who'll 
Follow ? or, Glimpses of Western Life. By Mrs. Mary 
Clavers, an Actual Settler." " Forest Life," in two 
volimies followed this ; and afterward, in 1845, "Western 
Clearings." She became editor of a magazine, and in 
1848 visited the Old World, recording her impressions 
in a work called " Holidays Abroad," a pleasant volume. 

Hannah F. Lee, born in Newburyport, Mass., was 
the daughter of an eminent physician. In 1838 she 
wrote, " Three Experiments of Living," which wa? 
circulated widely by the English press, and was adver- 
tised in large, letters at the booksellers' in Dresden. 
About thirty editions were issued in America. Her 
next work was " Old Painters ; " and this was succeeded 



230 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

by "Luther and his Times," " Cranmer and his 
Times," and " The Huguenots in France and America," 
all of these being written for the instruction of youth. 
" Her first publication was a novel called " Grace Sey- 
mour." "Nearly the whole of this work was burnt in 
the great fire at New York, before many of the volumes 
had been bound and issued. . . . Another little book, 
' Rosanna, or Scenes in Boston,' was written by par- 
ticular desire, to increase the funds of a charity school. 
As her name has not been prefixed to any of her books, 
it is impossible to enumerate all which have proceeded 
from her pen. . . . Her first known publication was the 
appendix to Miss Hannah Adams's memoir of herself, 
edited by Dr. Joseph Tuckerman. Nearly all Mrs. 
Lee's works have been republished in England." ^ 

Eliza LESiiiB of Philadelphia was of Scottish and 
Swedish ancestry, but is often mentioned as an English 
authoress, when she is really a woman of our country 
as well as century. She wrote the celebrated " Sev- 
enty-Five Receipts ; " but afterward she wrote for the 
nursery rather than for the kitchen. The childhood 
of the writer of these pages rejoiced in '•'• The Mirror," 
which was one of the Ijooks in the first library with 
which she was ever connected as a joint proprietor, and 
which was formed by the contributions of school-girls 
on Nantucket Island ; and Mrs. Leslie's " Stories for 
Emma " was one of the earliest books I received as a 
prize in school. " The American Girls' Book " en- 
chanted those early playmates also, while later years 
were enlivened by her contributions to " Godey." 
Mrs. LesUe did not forget the cuisine^ and prepared a 
large work on " Cookery," which met with great favor; 
also, " The House Book " and " The Ladies' New 
^ Mrs. Hale's Womau's Recora. 




ALICE CAKY. 



LITERARY WOMEN. 233 

Receipt Book." In 1841 " Althea Vernon " apj^eared ; 
in 1848, " Amelia, or a Young Lady's Vicissitudes ; " and 
her pen was busy till in 1856 it was laid aside forever. 

Maria I. McIntosh is a native of Georgia, and 
received her education in her native place, Sunbury. 
In 1835 she removed to New York, and there her first 
work appeared, " Blind Alice." Then came " Jessie 
Grahame," " Florence Arnott," " Grace and Clara," 
" Ellen Leslie," " Conquest and Self-Conquest," 
" Woman an Enigma," " Praise and Principle," and 
" The Cousins," some of which were published by the 
Harpers. The Appletons published " Two Lives, or 
To Seem and To Be," " Aunt Kitty's Tales," " Charms 
and Counter Charms," and " Woman in America, her 
Work and her Reward." In 1850 appeared her work 
entitled "The Christmas Guest," intended as a book 
for the holidays. In all her writings there are said to 
be " evidences of originality and freshness of mind as 
well as of good judgment and sound religious prin- 
ciple." 

Alice B. Neal was born in Hudson, N.Y., and 
educated at New Hampton, N.H. She married Joseph 
C. Neal in 1846, and wrote for his paper, " The Satur- 
day Gazette," which after his death she assisted to 
edit. Her writings, in 1850, were collected into a 
volume called, " The Gossips of Rivertown : with 
Sketches in Prose and Verse." She wrote two charm- 
ing little books, " Helen Morton's Trial " and " Pictures 
from the Bible." She has now passed to the land 
where, as she wrote once, — 

" The stars are trembling in the flood 
Of melody that thrills, 
Onward and upward, till all space 
The glorious anthem fills 1" 



234 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Alice and Phebe Gary, sisters aud sister-poets, are 
lovingly remembered. Both were natives of Mount 
Healthy, near Cincinnati, Ohio. Alice was born April 
26, 1820, and Phebe on September 4, 1824. They lived 
till 1871, and then Alice departed on the 12th of Febru- 
ary, and Phebe lingered only till the sultry days, and died 
on the last day of July of the same year. The sisters 
could not long be separated. " They were lovely and 
pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not di- 
vided." Their early opportunities for education were 
slight, but they were rarely gifted. Alice's sketches in 
the " National Era " first attracted attention. In 1850, 
the sisters published a volume of poems, and a second 
and third soon followed. Several healthful novels, redo- 
lent with pure morality and sweet scenes of home-life, 
followed in later years ; " Hagar," " Plollywood," " Mar- 
ried, but not Mated," " The Bishop's Son," " Pictures 
of Country Life," and " Snowberries." 

Underwood says Alice Cary had " the clear vision, the 
instant sense of comparison, aud the perception of anal- 
ogies not discerned by common eyes. Her memory 
treasured all the picturesque associations of her child- 
hood, and we find them in profusion in her poems. . . . 
Her poems can be read with hearty enjoyment, and ought 
to be remembered and esteemed as among the best utter- 
ances of American women." ^ Alice Cary died in the 
home, so well known to the literary men and women of 
her times, in Twentieth Street, New York city, now 
owned by Dr. Emily Blackwell. Her funeral was at- 
tended, so Horace Greeley said, by more distinguished 
men and women, and a larger audience beside, than any 
he had ever known. 

Phebe Cary lingered only six months longer on the 
' Handbook of Englisn Literature. 




FHGiBE CARY 



LITERARY WOMEN. 237 

earth, and then seemed to die of heart-sickness and loneli- 
ness. Her sister Alice seemed to need her, she said. 
She died in Newport, R. I., whither she had gone for her 
health. Her remains were taken to their old home in 
New York, and from All Souls Church (Dr. Bellows) 
she was buried. They were laid side by side in Green- 
wood Cemetery, and Mrs. Mary Clemmer Ames, in 
1873, prepared an acceptable biography of both, contain- 
ing their portraits, and some of their later poems. 

Emma D. E. N. Southworth is known principally 
as a novelist. She is a Maryland lady, was left with 
two children to maintain, and wrote for " The National 
Era," at first anonymously. Encouraged by friends to 
write more, and to write books, she did so, till now her 
name is familiar to story-lovers all over the land, per- 
haps the world. Her principal productions, when Mrs. 
Hale prepared her " Record " in 1851, were '.' Retribu- 
tion, or the Vale of Shadows," " The Deserted Wife," 
" The Mother-in-Law, or the Isle of Rays," and " Shan- 
nandale." Since then they have been so numerous as 
to merit the name of Legion ; and, though of the class 
termed sensational, are regarded as of high moral tone. 

Ann S. Stephens was a native of Derby, Conn. 
She was a valued contributor to various magazines, 
some of which she edited ; and for one of her stories, 
" Mary Derwent," she received a prize of four hundred 
dollars. In the autumn of 1850 Mrs. Stephens accom- 
panied some friends on a tour through Europe aixd 
Eastern lands, expecting to be absent about two years. 
So says Mrs. Hale. The fruits of that season of travel 
appeared in her later writings, which have been very 
popular. The culture which foreign joumeyings afford 
is invaluable alike for the story-writer or the sermon- 
izer. Novelists and clergymen are among the people 



238 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

most benefited by rambling in storied haunts and 
classic lands. One of Mrs. Stephens's later novels, 
" Fashion and Famine," is said to have been exceed- 
ingly popular, and its author to " possess powers of 
description of the first order." 

Louisa C. Tuthill was born and educated in New 
Haven, Conn. " In 1825 she was left a widow with 
four children, and to solace herself under her heavy 
affliction she had recourse to her pen. At this time she 
w^rote ' James Somers, the Pilgrim's Sou,' published 
in 1827; and 'Mary's Visit to B.', in 1829. She 
continued to write anonymously for periodical literature 
for some time, and in 1848-49 published ' The Young 
Lady's Reader,' and ' Young Lady's Friend ; ' the 
first works to which her name was attached. In 1842 
she removed to the vicinity of Boston, where she 
wrote, ' I will be a Gentleman,' and ' I will be a 
Lady ; ' books for the young, which have been very 
successful. She continued the series." And not long 
after having removed to Philadelphia published, " The 
History of Architecture," following it with a book for 
young mothers, and a series of books entitled " Success 
in Life." "Mrs. Tuthill is a pleasant writer," says 
Mrs. Hale : " her cheerful spirit and hopeful philosophy 
give an attractive charm even to good advice^ which, 
like medicine, requires often to be sugared before it is 
willingly taken." 

" Harriet V. Cheney is a native of Massachu- 
setts. Her love of literature was developed in child- 
hood, probably owing much to the influence of her 
mother's taste and genius, who was author of one of 
the earliest American novels, ' The Coquette, or His- 
tory of Eliza Wharton.' Soon after she left school, she 
wrote, in conjimction with her sister, ' The Sunday 



LITERARY WOMEN. 239 

School, or Village Sketches.' " Her next work was 
"A Peep at the Pilgrims," which was republished in 
London. "The Rivals of Acadia" was the next; and 
then for a number of years her time was devoted to 
her -family. The death of her husband led her again 
to literary exertions ; and she wrote " Sketches from the 
life of Christ," and " Confessions of an Early Martyr," 
and afterward wrote largely for a magazine in Canada, 
to which region she removed. 

Susan Fenemore Cooper, the daughter of the 
distinguished novelist of Cooperstown, N.Y., ought not 
to be forgotten as one of the women who loved litera- 
ture in our first century. Her " Rural Hours," pub- 
lished in 1850, and other books written since that 
period, show that she has inherited some of the paternal 
ability to wield a pen. 

Margaret Coxe of Burlington, N.J., wrote some 
excellent works : " Botany of the Scriptures," " Won- 
ders of the Deep," and " The Young Lady's Compan- 
ion." 

" Eliza FarRAR, wife of Prof. John Farrar of Har- 
vard College, has written several works of merit . . . 
'The Life of Lafayette,' and 'Life of Howard,' 'The 
' Youth's Letter Writer,' ' The Children's Robinson 
Crusoe,' ' The Young Lady's Friend,' and latest ' Rec- 
ollections of Seventy Years.' " 

Mary Ann Hammer Dodd is known as a fine 
magazine writer, and Jane A. Eames as a writer of 
Sunday-school books. 

Minnie S. Davis is a resident of Hartford, Conn., 
the daughter of Rev. S. A. Davis, and from early youth 
busy with her pen ; and, though an invalid for many 
years, there are many books, magazine articles, juvenile 
dramas, poems, &c., to prove her industry. " Marion 



240 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Lester " is the title of one of her volumes which has 
been very popular ; " Clinton Forest," the title of 
another. It is confessed this brief notice does justice 
neither to the literary excellence and high moral tone 
of her productions, nor to the Christian submission of 
the patient sufferer. 

Ellen E. Miles, born in Randolph, Mass., in 1835, 
has compiled a dainty volume called " Our Home 
Beyond the Tide, and other Poems ; " and has written 
both pi-ose and verse for various periodicals. She 
assisted in collecting a volume of poems by Rev. Phebe 
A. Hanaford, and wrote the biographical sketch which 
accompanies the volume. She is now writing, in con- 
junction with the same lady, a volume called " Seashore 
and Woodland Rambles," a portion of which has 
already been published as a magazine article. 

Caholine a. Soule. This writer will be specially 
mentioned in the chapter on " Women Journalists." 
She is one of the busy women who with voice and pen 
seek to benefit humanity. 

Elizabeth Palmer Peabody is well known as an 
educator, and perhaps should be mentioned mainly with 
" Women Teachers." Mrs. Hale says of her, " Daugh- 
ter of Dr. N. Peabody, she is descended on the moth- 
er's side from the two Joseph Palmers, one of whom 
was president and the other secretary of the first Pro- 
vincial Congress that assembled in Massachusetts to 
consider British wrongs ; and both of whom, the father 
as brigadier-general, the son as his aid, were engaged in 
the battle of Lexington. Miss Peabody was born. May 
16, 1804, at Billerica, and lived in her early life in 
Salem, Mass., but, since 1822, has resided principally 
in Boston, where she has been engaged in education 
and literary pursuits. She first published a ' Key to 



LITERARY WOMEN. 241 

Hebrew History,' and a ' Key to Grecian History ; ' 
she next wrote the ' Records of a School,' which went 
into the second edition ; and also contributed to the 
early numbers of the ' Journal of Education ; ' to the 
' Christian Examiner ' of 1834, in which are some arti- 
cles on the ' Spirit of the Hebrew Scriptures ; ' and to 
the * Dial,' in which she wrote the articles on Social- 
ism. In 1849 Miss Peabody edited ' The Esthetic 
Papers,' to which she contributed an article ' On the 
Dorian Culture,' more elaborate than any thing else 
she has written ; and a paper upon ' The Significance 
of the Alphabet ; ' besides several shorter articles and 
poems. Her latest work is a school-book, entitled the 
' Polish-American System of Chronology,' being a 
modified translation of Gen. Bem's method of teaching 
history on a chronological system." Thus speaks Mrs. 
Hale concerning Miss Peabody, who has continued her 
literary labors since that date, and has been especially 
active in introducing books on the kindergarten system 
of education to the notice of parents and teachers. 
She has also united in the reforms of the day, aud given 
pen and voice to the cause of the advancement of 
women. Mrs. Hale says, " Miss Peabody's writings 
are of a class unusual to her sex. They evince great 
learning and research, a mind free from the trammels 
of prejudice, and capable of judging for itself on what- 
ever subject its attention may be turned : one whose 
aim is high, — no less than the progressive improve- 
ment of her race, and who presses forward to the end 
she has in view with an earnestness and energy pro- 
portioned to its importance. Her poems are harmoni- 
ous, and show more thought than is usually seen in 
such effusions." 

The two sisters of Miss Peabody, who are known 



242 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

more by their husbands' names, and because of theii 
husbands' fame, — the wife of Horace Mann, and the 
wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne, — were women of liter- 
ary tastes, and performed some literary work, entitling 
them to be among the literary women of the century. 

Phebe a. Hanaeord, the writer of this volume, 
has wielded the pen for the press ever since the age of 
thirteen ; and in the third of this century during which 
she has written, has had published the following vol- 
umes, which have met with encouraging sale. "My 
Brother," a miniature volume of prose and verse, pub- 
lished in 1852 ; " Lucretia, the Quakeress," an Anti- 
Slavery story, published first in " The Independent 
Democrat" of Concoid, N.H., and then in book-form 
in 1853 ; " Leonette," a Sunday-school book, published 
in 1857 ; " The Best of Books and its History," pub- 
lished in 1860, having previously been delivered, chapter 
by chapter, as lectures in the Baptist Sunday school of 
Nantucket ; " The Young Captain," a memorial of 
Capt. Richard C. Derby, who fell at Antietam, pub- 
lished in 1865 ; " Frank Nelson, or The Runaway 
Boy " a juvenile, pubhshed in 1865 ; " Life of Abraham 
Lincoln," published in 1865, by B, B. Russell of Bos- 
ton, the sale of which reached twenty thousand, five 
thousand being also published in German ; " Field, 
Gunboat, Hospital, and Prison," being records of the 
war, published in 1866 ; and " The Soldier's Daughter,' 
a prize-story, also in 1866 ; " The Life of George Pea- 
body," in 1870 (which reached a sale of sixteen thou- 
sand) ; " From Shore to Shore, and other Poems," 
published in 1871 ; and in the same year, " The Life of 
Charles Dickens." Other smaller volumes for chil- 
dren, many editorials, sketches, and other articles in 
prose and verse for many periodicals, and several pub- 



LITERARY WOMEN. 243 

listed speeches and sermons, attest to the busy pen of 
one who will be mentioned biographically in the chap- 
ter on " Women Preachers." 

Mary B. Shindler, better known as Mary S. B. 
Dana, published several works : " The Southern " and 
the " Northern Harp," " The Parted Family and other 
Poems," and afterward several tales for youth. But 
the book by which she is best known is one published 
in 1845, entitled "Letters to Relatives and Friends," 
which justifies her change from Calviuistic opinions to 
Unitarian. Since then she has married an Episcopal 
clergyman, and united with his church. 

Anna E. Appleton, born in Boston, July 22, 1826, 
educated in the best schools of Boston, and in the State 
Normal School under Cyrus Pierce and Samuel J. May, 
a pupil and assistant in the school of Elizabeth P. Pea- 
body, has written both prose and verse, chiefly for the 
young. In 1869 a volume from her pen was published 
as one of a prize series by the Unitarian Sabbath School 
Association, entitled " Stories for Eva." Will be men- 
tioned among '' Women Teachers." 

Cornelia Tuthill, is the author of " Wreaths and 
Branches for the Church," '* Christian Ornaments," 
" The Boy of Spirit," and other juvenile works. She 
is a native of New Haven, Conn. 

Sarah Halt., born in Philadelr.hia, Oct. 30, 1761, 
daughter of Rev. John Erving, pubhshed a book 
entitled " Conversations on the Bible." " This work, 
which was very well received, both in this country and 
and in England, contains a fund of information, which 
could only have been collected by diligent and pro- 
found thought. While engaged in this undertaking 
she began the study of Hebrew, to enable herself to 
make the necessary researches, and attained a consid- 



244 "WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

able proficiency in this difficult language. When it ia 
stated that Mrs. Hall commenced this work after she 
had passed the age of fifty, when she had been the 
mother of eleven children, and that during her whole 
life she was distinguished for her industry, economy, 
and attention to all the duties of her station, it must be 
allowed that she was no ordinary woman. Her other 
writings were confined to contributions to the leading 
literary periodicals of the day." Mary E. Lee of 
Charleston, S.C, wrote prose and verse to great accept- 
ance. The Massachusetts School Library Association 
published "Social Evenings, or Historical Tales," 
which was very popular. After her death, in 1849, a 
selection from her poems was published. 

Margaret Harrison Smith, the daughter of Col. 
John Bayard, who signed the first legislative act ever 
passed in any of the United States for the aboli- 
tion of slavery, as Speaker of the Pennsylvania Legis- 
lature, was born in 1778. Her first book was pub- 
lished in 1827, title, " A Winter in Washington ; or, 
The Seymour Family." Her next, " What is Gen- 
tility ? " was published in 1830. 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, the mother^ was daugh- 
ter of Prof. Moses Stuart, and wife of Prof. Austin 
Phelps. .She died in 1852, stiU young. Her three 
books, " Sunny Si^e," "A Peep at Number Five," and 
"The Angel over the Right. Shoulder," have been 
much read and admired. 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, the daughter, has fol- 
lowed worthily in her footsteps. Her " Gates Ajar," 
" Hedged In," " Men, Women, and Ghosts," have 
gained wide and deserved circulation. But this 
chapter is already long enough, and the writer's pen 
weary in its proud mention of the literary women ir 



LITERARY WOMEN. 245 

America. Some can hardly be mentioned, and some 
must be left out utterly, in the hope that some other 
writer, with more space and more leisure, will do justice 
to all. Elizabeth Warner, or Wetherell, and her 
sister, will not be forgotten while " The Wide, Wide 
World" or"Queechy" shall be read. Maria Cum- 
MiNGS will be remembered till "The Lamplighter " is 
no more. Augusta J. Evans is known as far as " Beu- 
lah " is read. And there is " Gajl Hamilton " (Mary 
A. Dodge of Hamilton of Mass.), who has added valua- 
ble books to our American libraries, — " Country Liv- 
ing, and Country Thinking " " Gala Days," " Stumbling 
Blocks," " Summer Rest," " Wool Gathering," " Skir- 
mishes and Sketches," " Woman's Wrongs," &c. 
Long may she send forth her spicy utterances, becom- 
iag daily more earnest for reform and righteous living I 
But Adeline D. T Whitntey (daughter of the late 
Enoch Train, born in Boston, Sept. 15, 18:^4) is a 
name that must be here, since her admirable books have 
so blessed and strengthened human souls. The tes- 
timony of reviewers has been given so decidedly in her 
favor, that no further word is needed ; and " Faith 
Gartney's Girlhood," " We Girls," " The Other Girls," 
" Real Folks," " Hitherto," " Patience Strong's Out- 
ings " and Sights and Insights," &c., will carry on her 
fame to latest American generations. 

Sarah Payson Parton, better known as " Fanny 
Fern," and the sister of N. P. Wilhs, should be remem- 
bered among our literary women. 

Abba Goold Woolson, born at Windham, Me., 
April, 30, 1838, is the author of " Woman in Ameri- 
can Society," and a work on " Dress Reform." She is 
a contributor to various periodicals, and writes verse as 
well as prose. Her poem, " Over the Hills," is in 
Underwood's " Handbook of American Authors." 



246 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

LomsE Chandler Moulton, born in Pom fret, 
Conn., 1835, contributor to " Harper's " " New York 
Tribune," &c. Her poem, " The House in the Meadow," 
is in the above mentioned " Handbook." Lucy Lar- 
COm's " Hannah Binding Shoes " is also there. Har- 
riet Elizabeth Prescott Spopford was born in 
Calais, Me., April 3, 1835. She was married in 1855, to 
Richard S. Spofford, Esq., a lawyer of Newburyport, 
Mass. She was early distinguished by her literary 
abihty. She contributed a story entitled " In a 
Cellar " to the " Atlantic Monthly," in its first year of 
publication, which was greatly admired for its vivacity, 
its insight into character, and its brilliant dialogue. In 
1859 she published a story called " Sir Rohan's Ghost." 
" In 1863 she collected a series of tales which she 
had written for the magazines, entitled ' The Amber 
Gods, and Other Stories.' ' Azarian ' followed in 1864. 
' A Thief in the Night,' a short but powerful novel- 
ette, was published in 1872. She has also written 
many poems, sketches, and stories that remain uncol- 
lected." 1 Helen (Fiske) Hunt, daughter of the 
late Prof. N. W. Fiske of Amherst College, was born 
in Amherst, Mass., in 1831. She was married to Major 
Edward B. Hunt, U.S.A., an eminent officer of engi- 
neers, and assistant professor at West Point, who was 
killed in 1863 by a premature explosion while experi- 
menting with a submarine battery of his own invention. 
Mrs. Hunt resides in Newport, R.I. She has published 
a volume of poems called " Verses by H. H." 
(1871), and a collection of foreign sketches, entitled 
Bits of Travel" (1872)." 2 

1 Underwood's Handbook of American Authors. 
"^ Underwood's Handbook, &c. 



LITERABY WOMEN. 247 

Henbibtta Lee Palmer, wife of J. W. Palmer, 
M.D., of Baltimore, has written a work called " The 
Heroines of Shakspeare." 

Emma V. Hallett has published a story called 
"Natalie; or, A Gem Among the Seaweeds." Lydia 
P. Palmer and Emily L. Meyer, mother and daughter, 
of Nantucket, Mass., but now residing in Germany, 
have written much for periodicals, both original and 
translations. Julla Cranch has contributed " Three 
Successful Girls " to our literature. Lida M. Dickln- 
BON has given us a religious-philosophic story, called 
'* Mistaken," and writes for the " Woman's Journal " 
under the name of " Lydia Fuller." Edna D. 
Cheney has blessed the young people with stories, and 
used her pen in the service of art and humanity, till 
one is at a loss whether to place her with reformers, 
artists, teachers, or literary women. Marie A. 
Browne has, in connection with her friend Selma 
BoRQ, given America many translations of the works 
of Sophie Schwartz. Helen C. Conant has furnished 
us a fine " History of the Translation of the Enghsh 
Bible," "Life of Judson," and other works. Antoi- 
nette Brown Blackwell should be mentioned in 
this chapter, but that she deserves mention also with 
the preachers, and women of science. 

Some women who have high claims to be numbered 
among literary women will be mentioned in the chapter 
on " Poets," or among the professional women. And 
how the children would lebuke the writer if Louisa 
M. Alcott of Concord, Mass., should be wholly 
ignored. But who could forget the author of " Little 
Women," " Little Men," " Old-Fashioned Girl," 
"Work," &c., (Sec, which all the children, old and 
young, enjoy. " Louisa M. Alcott may be credited 



248 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

with inventing a new substitute for a speech. She 
visited the Sorosis the other day, and was formally pre 
sented to the Club by the president as the ' most suc- 
cessful woman author in America,' and being on hei 
feet told a little story. She said at Vassar College the 
girls, as usual, asked for a speech ; and when she, also 
as usual, told them she never had and never intended to 
make one, they requested that she would place herself 
in a prominent position, and turn around slowly. This 
she consented to do ; and, if revolving would satisfy or 
gratify Sorosis, she was willing to 'revolve.' " 

There are others worthy of praiseful remembrance ; 
but like the day that will come to a close before all our 
work is done, so must this chapter before all has been 
said concerning our literary galaxy ; but, with a 
thought of McDonald Clarke's words, — 

" Now twilight puts her curtain down 
And pins it with a star," 

this chapter shall be finished, and emblazoned with the 
name of one who will be more fully mentioned in the 
next chapter, but who is now one of the chief among 
our literary women, viz., Julia Ward Howe. 




CHAPTER VIII. 

WOMEN POETS. 

Julia Ward Howe — Lydia H. Sigourney — Elizabeth Akers Allen — 
Lucy Larcom — Alice and Phebe Gary — Frances S. Osgood — 
Caroline A. Mason — Celia Tliaxter, &c. 

" God wills, man hopes : in common ?ouls 
Hope Is but vague and undefined, 
Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls, 
A blessing to his kind." 

J. R. Lowell 

"Make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered." 
— ISA. xxiii. 16. 

EVERY land has had its smgers ; and m all lands 
the real poets have been, and are, the true proph- 
ets. Our country forms no exception. The women 
of our country and our first century have genuine 
poets among them, — some still here amid the shadows 
of time, some already resting amid the unveiled splen- 
dors of eternity. This chapter will mention a few of 
them. 

And first, Julia Ward Howe, whose " Battle Hymn 
of the Republic " has been " Marching on " with the 



250 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

author's fame towards the appreciation of a whole peo- 
ple. Mrs. Howe has written many exquisite poems, 
thoughtful and strong as Emerson's, sweet as Whittier's, 
and welcome as herself to those who know her. She 
has been called the Browning of America, but Eliza- 
beth and Julia do not strike one lyre. Americans maj 
be pardoned for preferring the author of " Passion 
Flower," " Words for the Hour," and " Later Lyrics." 
There is a drama also, " The World's Own," which is 
poetic, and are not her prose works full of poetry ? 
" The Trip to Cuba," so redolent with memories of the 
scholar and preacher, Theodore Parker, then an invaUd 
fellow-voyager ; " From the Oak to the Olive," so 
rich in fancies and fine descriptions I One is at a loss 
to know whether to call Mrs. Howe poet or philoso- 
pher. In later years she has added the title of re- 
former, and shown herself worthy of her place by the 
Bide of Samuel G. Howe, the philanthropist, whose 
" Memoir," for the use of the blind and others, the 
faithful wife has just prepared. That she is the daugh- 
ter of Samuel Ward, a New York banker, that her 
mother, Mrs. Julia Ward, was a poet, and that she was 
finely educated, with other facts, may be learned from 
the volume called " Eminent Women of the Age ; " and, 
since it is there to be found, less may be said here. 
May it be many a day before her biography in full shall 
be penned ; for the world hath need of such as she, and 
our country can ill afford to lose a woman at once so 
sweet and strong, so loving and so wise ! 

Lydla. H. Sigotjbney was an earlier writer in rhyme, 
and her rhythmic contributions to the literature of our 
first century are many. In the volume published by 
her daughter, called " Letters of Life," the story of her 
efforts and successes as a writer, and her worth as a 




MRS. JULIA WARD HOWE. 



WOMEN POETS. 253 

woman, is well told. She wrote prose as well as versa 
" She was a most prolific writer, having published 
no less than fifty-five volumes, consisting of poems, 
biographies, tales, and miscellanies." She was born in 
Norwich, Conn., Sept. 1, 1791, and died in Hartford, 
Conn., June 10, 1865. 

" Elizabeth Akebs Allen was born in the town of 
Strong, Franklin Co., Me., Oct. 9, 1832. ' She was mar- 
ried in 1860 to Paul Akers, the sculptor, who died 
within less than a year afterwards. She is now the 
wife of Mr. E. M. Allen of New York. Her first 
efforts in verse were pubUshed with the nom de plume 
of Florence Percy, and had a wide popularity through 
the newspapers. A volume of her poems was published 
in 1867 by Messrs. Fields, Osgood, & Co. They have 
undoubted merits, being full of tender feeling, with no 
tinge of morbidness, and touched here and there with 
high lights of vivid imagery and picturesque epithets. 
Notice this picture of chestnut blossoms : — 

' Lanterned with white the chestnut branches wave.' 

" And the plaintive song of the wild-bird : — 

♦ Filling with his sweet trouble all the air.* 

" Observe the effect of the church windows : — 

' Where through the windows melts the unwilling light, 

And in its passage beams their gorgeous stain, 

Then bars the gloom with hues all rainbow bright, 

As human souls grows beautiful through pain.' 



*' See this glimpse of the camp 

' The dar 
Mushroomed with tent 

If besides the specimens printed here, our readers 



' The darkened hills 
Mushroomed with tents.' 



254 WOMEN OF THE CBNTUBY. 

would see instances of the author's power, especially 
in pathetic description, let them turn to her volume, 
and read * The Sparrow at Sea,' and ' Left Behind.' " ' 
Let them look also for " My Angel Name," the poem by 
which she first became known to the author of this 
volume and to many others. 

Lucy Labcom is a poet to whom applies the phrase, 
" Poeta naseitur non fity She was born at Beverly 
Farms, Mass., in 1826, so Underwood tells us ; and then 
he quotes her "Hannah Binding Shoes," which has 
been sung by the Hutchinsons far and wide. Mrs. 
Hale says, " While she was employed as an operative at 
Lowell, she first began to write ; and her earliest effu- 
sions, both in prose and verse, appeared in " The Low- 
ell Offering," and were received with particular favor. 
At present Miss Larcom is employed as a teacher in 
Illinois." Since the publication of Mrs. Hale's book, 
Miss Larcom has been a teacher in the Wheaton Semi- 
nary for Young Ladies at Norton, Mass., and afterward 
editorially connected with " Our Young Folks." She 
has published at least two volumes: one simply entitled 
" Poems by Lucy Larcom ; " the other, " An Idyl of 
Work," a poem embodying scenes in factory life. 

Mary T. Webber, born in Beverly, Mass. (The 
daughter of Israel Trask, the successful introducer of 
Britannia ware into this country), has written mostly 
with the nom de plume of " Mary Webb." She studied 
at the celebrated Bradford Academy, of which the sis- 
ter of Ann Hasseltine Judson was principal ; and has 
written less than she might, through a modesty equal 
to her fine talent. In 1861 she united with the author 
of this volume in compiling a collection of loyal and 
patriotic poems, called " Chimes of Freedom and 

1 Underwood's Handbook, &c., p. 349. 



WOMEN POETS. 255 

Union," to which she contributed, from her own pen, 
poems " On the Death of Ellsworth," and " Our Mas- 
sachusetts Dead." Miss Miles's little volume opens 
with a poem bearing the title of the book, " Our Home 
Beyond the Tide," and closes with one of the same 
title by " Mary Webb," both composed by their authors 
in Beverly, Mass., after a contemplation of the same 
picture. 

Cakoline a. Mason was the daughter of Dr. Cal- 
vin Briggs, and was born at Marblehead, Mass., in 
1823. She was a schoolmate and friend with Mrs. 
Webber at the Bradford Academy. The wife of 
Charles Mason, Esq., a lawyer of Fitchburg, Mass., 
she now resides there on the side of the famous Roll- 
stone Mountain, which adds to the pictui'esqueness of 
the city. " Her earlier poems were published in the 
' Salem Register,' under the signature of ' Caro.' She 
afterwards contributed to the ' National Era ' and Anti- 
Slavery Standard.' She has also written for ' The Con- 
gregationalist,' ' The Liberal Christian,' ' The Monthly 
Rehgious Magazine,' ' The Independent,' ' The Christian 
Union,' and occasionally for other papers and periodi- 
cals. In 1852 she published a volume of her verses, 
entitled ' Utterance : a Collection of Home Poems.' 
These were the productions of her earlier days. They 
gave good promise however, of the still better offerings 
of her maturer years." ^ The Mass. S. S. Society pub- 
lished a small prose volume from her pen, entitled 
" Rose Hamilton." Mrs. Mason is widely known as 
the author of " Do they miss me at Home?" a song she 
wrote when a homesick school-girl, and which was 
sung by our soldier-boys in camp during all the 
war. 

J Singera and Songs of tLe Liberal Faith, by Alfred P. Putnam. 



i'5G WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

'« Lydia Louisa Ann Very," says Dr. Putnan, 
" sister of Jones and Washington Very, both of whom 
have a place in the roll of our singers, was born in 
Salem, Nov. 2, 1823. For about thirty years she has 
been with her sister, Francis Eliza, a teacher in the 
schools of her native city. She shares largely the fine 
poetic gift which distinguishes the family, and in 1856 
published a volume of her verses, which was printed 
by W. F. Draper, Andover, Mass. Since then, she has 
from time to time contributed other offerings to various 
Boston and Salem papers, while yet engaged in her 
vocation as a teacher. As an artist, she has produced 
pictorial illustrations of ' Red Riding Hood,' and other 
children's stories, accompanied by exquisite designs and 
pretty juvenile verses. Those have proved to be very 
popular, and have been re-published in Germany." ^ 

" Sabah White Livermore was born in Wilton, 
N.H., July 20, 1789, and was the daughter of Rev. 
Jonathan Livermore, who was settled as the first min- 
ister of that town, Dec. 14, 1763." So says Dr. Put- 
nam, from whose book we learn that she was a teacher, 
and was instrumental in establishing one of the earliest 
Sunday schools in the country. She wrote verses for 
a variety of occasions, but they were never collected 
into a book. She died July 3, 1874, at Wilton, N.H., 
nearly eighty-five years old. 

Caroline Gilman, who has been mentioned among 
the literary women, should be classed with the poets 
also. Judge White of Salem noted for several years 
the hymns sung in the First Church of that city, and 
on examination found that Mrs. Gilman's hymn, " God 
Our Father," had been most used. The first stanza is 
this : — 

1 Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith. 



WOMEN POETS. 257 

" Is there a lone and dreary hour, 

When worldly pleasures lose their power, 
My Father, let me turn to thee, 
And set each thought of darkness free." 

LoTTiSA Jane Hajll, daughter of John Paxk, M.D., 
was born in Newburyport, Mass., Feb. 2, 1802. She 
began to publish poems at the age of twenty, at first 
anonymously. " Miriam," a fine drama in verse, was 
published in 1827. She was married, Oct. 1, 1840, ta 
Rev. Edward B. Hall. A volume of her writings, 
entitled " Verse and Prose," was published in 1850. 

Sabah E. Miles was born March 28, 1807, in 
Boston, Mass. Her father was Nathaniel W. Appleton. 
She married in 1833, Solomon P. Miles, who was then 
principal of the Boston High School. She resided in 
or near Boston till recently, when she removed to Brat- 
tleboro', Vt. " The few of her hymns or poems which 
have been published were sent to the printer by her 
father, who did not fail to discover their rare merit : 
they were mostly composed while she waa at a very 
early age." Two of her hymns are familiar and favor- 
ites, one commencing, — 

" Thou who didst stoop below." 

The other, — 

" The earth all light and loveliness." 

Af.MTRA Seymotxr of Hingham, Mass., long and- 
favorably known as a teacher in Boston, has written 
hymns and poems for various occasions which entitle 
her to be numbered among the women poets of ihe 
century. 

Akke Meles, born in Salem, Mass., on the second 
day of February, 1803, has penned poems of great 
beauty and power, hymns and songs for various occa- 
sions, descriptive pieces and commemorative verses that 



258 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

have been much prized in the hour of their special 
use, and have delighted stranger eyes when they have 
appeared in print. Her three daughters have become 
successful teachers, but only one of them, — 

Ellen E. Miles, has inherited her mother's poetic 
talent. Her verses have appeared in " The Liberal 
Christian," " The Woman's Journal," " Voice of 
Peace," and in the various newspapers of the towns 
where they have been sung or recited by choir's or 
pupils. 

Phebb a. Hanafoed has written very many fugi- 
tive stanzas for all sorts of occasions, grave and gay, 
most of which found their way into print, though, 
according to the opinion of the writer of this volume, 
they were not equally worthy of pubUcation. She has 
twice delivered the poem at the annual commencement 
at Westbrook Seminary, Maine, and once at the Com- 
mencement of Buchtel College, Ohio. In 1865 the pub- 
lisher of this volume issued a small volume, entitled 
" The Martyred President, and other Poems," from her 
pen ; and in 1870, a much larger one, entitled " From 
Shore to Shore, and other Poems." 

Mary W. Hale of Boston, born Jan. 28, 1810. 
Baptized by Dr. Kirkland, whom she afterward com- 
memorated in verse. A teacher for many years in 
Boston, Keene (N.H.), Wellfleet (Cape Cod), Newton 
and Taunton (Mass.), and Bristol (R.I.). She died Nov. 
17, 1862, and her remains lie in Mount Auburn. A 
fine sketch of her is to be found in Dr. Putnam's 
excellent book on "Singers and Songs.' In 1840 a 
volume of her " Poems " was published by Ticknor in 
Boston. 

Frances M. Chesbro, born in Warwick, Mass., July 
13, 1824 (the sister of Rev. A. D. Mayo), has written 



WOMEN POETS. 259 

Qumeroufl liymns and poems, published mainly in Uni- 
tarian periodicals. She published a story-book for chil- 
dren in 1858, entitled " SmCes and Tears." 

Mabtha Perky Lowe was bom at Keene, N.H., 
Nov. 21, 1829. She married the sainted Rev. Charles 
Lowe in 1857, and not long after " published a volume 
of poems, entitled 'The Olive and -the Pine,' the 
words being typical of scenes in Spain and New Eng- 
land, which she contrasted in her verses. Several 
years afterward she published a second volume, ' Love 
in Spain, and other Poems,' containing a lyric drama 
of diplomatic and social life in that country [which 
she visited before her marriage], and also some pieces 
that had appeared from time to time during the late 
war in our own land. In 1871 she accompanied her 
husband and two children to Europe, where she corre- 
sponded regularly with ' The Liberal Christian,' on 
subjects that were connected with the advancement of 
a broader religious faith in the Old World. She re- 
turned to America with her family in 1873, and now 
lives in Somerville, Mass." ^ 

Elizabeth Lloyd Howell wrote a poem entitled 
" Milton's Prayer of Patience," so excellent and apt 
that many have believed it composed by Milton himself, 
tiU informed as to its authorship. It commences, — 

" I am old and blind ; 

Men point at me as smitten by Grod's frown ; 
Afflicted and deserted by my kind, 
Yet am I not cast down." 

This lady is said to be a Philadelphia Quaker. It is 
certain she is a Christian poet. Her poem ^' Watch '' 
has no equal in its Hue, where she teaches that, — 

1 Singers ami Songa. 



^<^0 WOMEN OF THE CENTO R?. 

" The captive's oar may pause upon the galley. 
The soldier sleep beneath his plumed crest, 
And Peace may fold her wings o'er hill and valley. 
But thou, O Christian I must not take thy rest." 

Ceua Thaxter is a poet for whom the writer of 
this volume once heard Charlotte Cushman, in private 
conversation, express a preference that was high praise 
from such a source. Underwood says, " Mrs Celia 
Thaxter was born in Portsmouth, N.H., June 29, 1835. 
She passed the greater part of her early life upon the 
Isles of Shoals, a rocky group about ten miles distant 
from the main land. She published in the ' Atlantic 
Monthly,' in 1867-8, a series of papers upon thest* 
islands which were of exceptional interest and value. 
. . . An examination of her poems, recently publibhed 
(1872), showed that the elements of strength and 
beauty in her prose were retained, and even heightened, 
in her verse. The range of the poems is confined to 
the sea and its shores. . . . On the solitary coast, in 
view of the sea, with its changeful skies, its distant 
ships, and its white-winged sea-birds, she is emphati- 
cally the most picturesque of poets and subtilest of 
ideal colorists. Her verses have the very swing of the 
sea. As we read we feel its cool breath, we perceive 
its delicate scent, and we hear the ripple of the waves 
and the soft note on the pebbly beach,"* 

Rose Terry was born in Hartford, Conn., Feb. 17, 
1827. She is now the wife of Rollin Cooke. " She 
published a volume of poems in 1861, which evince a 
delicate sense of the beautiful iu nature, a tender and 
rather melancholy feeling, and a sweet and melodious 
style of versification." ^ 

' Handbook of Amencan Authors, p. 660. 
« Ibid. 



WOMEN POETS. 2G1 

" Julia H. Scott was born in 1809, in the northerii 
part of Pennsylvania. Her maiden name was Kinney. 
She began to write verses when she was very young, 
and her first pieces were published when she was little 
more than sixteen. ... In 1835 she was married to 
Dr. David L. Scott of Towanda, where she died in 
1842. Her poems, together with a biography of the 
writer by Miss S. C. Edgarton, were published in 1843. 
Her songs are those of the household, full of gentle 
and feminine feeling and tender pathos." ^ 

Anna Maria Wells was born in Gloucester, Mass., 
in 1797. Her name was originally Foster. She wrote 
when young, but published little till after her marriage. 
In 1830 she published a small volume of " Poems and 
Juvenile Sketches." 

Mary Maria Chase, born in Chatham, N.Y., Aug. 
12, 1822. She studied at the Albany Seminary, 
edited there " The Monthly Rose," and in 1845 won 
two gold medals for a poem and a moral tale. In 
1846 she received a gold medal from the same AlumnsB 
Association for a prize essay on flowers. In 1846 she 
accepted the charge of the composition department in 
Brooklyn Female Academy, but on account of illness 
resigned. In a charming volume edited by Henry 
Fowler, called " Mary M. Chase and her Writings," 
we are told that " Mary's poetical genius was early 
manifested. When she was eight years old, her 
teacher, residing in the family, discovered one of her 
poems on ' The Three Days' Revolution in France,' 
which he deemed extraordinary, and with a pardonable 
zeal sent it to a city newspaper. When a copy came 
back, she detected her production in the ' poet's comer,' 
flushed deeply, and burst into tears. For years after, 

1 Mrs. Hale'a Woman's Record. 



262 



WOMEN OF THE CENTURA. 



it was impossible to get a sight at her compositions, 
although she wrote much ; and this early piece cannot 
be found." She was almost an improvisatrice, and 
the record of her life, as well as the poems and letters 
the volume contains, should be widely read. Hannah 
F. Gould was born in Lancaster, Vt. ; but she spent 
most of her life in Newburyport, Mass., where she died 
in 1865. Her father was a Revolutionary soldier ; and 
in her poems, " The Scar of Lexington," " The Revolu- 
tionary Soldier's Request," and " The Veteran and the 
Child," she probably referred to him. Her poems are 
mostly brief: they were written for periodicals first, 
and were published in successive volumes in 1832, 
1835, 1841, and 1850. Her poems " Jack Frost," " A 
Name in the Sand," and " The Pearl Diver," are well 
known, and will always be favorites. 

Anna Gardner of Nantucket, Mass., has written 
many exquisite poems for "The Commonwealth," " The 
Anti-Slavery Standard," and other papers. 

Mary Starbuck Coffin of the same island, the 
daughter of David and Phebe Starbuck, wrote many 
excellent poems. Both these ladies are descended 
from Peter Folger, the grandfather of Dr. Franklin, 
who was possessed of much poetic ability, which has 
cropped out in every generation which has succeeded 
him, and almost in every branch of his large family of 
descendants. Maria Mitchell and her sister Anne 
M. Macy, who are also of this descent, possess the 
rhyming ability, as the book " Seaweeds from the 
Shores of Nantucket " shows. Several others who 
contributed to that volume have the same Folger blood 
in their veins. Elizabeth Starbuck, nSe Swain, has 
written many acceptable poems for various occasions 
and the local press ; the same may be said of Eliza 



women poets. 263 

Babney, Hannah M. Robinson, Margaret Perry 
Yale, and others to whom the gift of poesy has been 
a joy for themselves and their readers. 

Katharine A. Ware was born in Quincy, Mass., 
in 1797. Her maiden name was Rhodes. Among lier 
poems was one addressed to Lafayette, and presented 
to him at his reception in Boston by her eldest child, 
then five years old ; and another, in honor of Gov. 
Clinton, was recited at the Great Canal celebration in 
New York. She published " The Bower of Taste " 
for several years. In 1839 went to Europe, and died in 
Paris in 1843. Shortly before her death she published 
her book, " The Power of the Passions, and other 
Poems." 

Lydia M. Child, though more widely known by 
her prose writings, is also a poet. Had she written 
nothing but " Marius," we would call her such. Most 
of her poems are in a small book called " The Coronal." 

Frances H. Green, born in Southfield, R.I., has 
written poems said to be " original and ingenious." 
Elizabeth M. Chandler was born 24th of December, 
1807, in Delaware. Her father was a Quaker, and the 
influence of his principles may be seen in her works. 
She received, when only eighteen years old, a prize from 
the editors of " The Casket," for a poem called " The 
Slave-Ship." Her poems, together with a Memoir, and 
some of her essays, were published in Philadelphia in 
1836. 

Lucretia Maria and Margaret Miller David- 
SON were sisters and poets. Theii' mother, Margaret 
M. Davidson, was also possessed of poetical ability. 
Both sisters, when very young, wrote marvellously 
excellent poetry. The eldest died when in her seven- 
teenth year, the youngest in her sixteenth ; each having 



264 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

written poems equalling those of many other poets writ- 
ten during a long life-time. The Memoirs of these sis- 
ters, and a volume of their mother's poems, have been 
published and widely read. From them the reader is 
advised to find further information concerning these 
prodigies. 

Elizabeth Oakes Smith was born in 1806, in Port- 
land, Me., and was married when but sixteen to Seba 
Smith, a poet and political writer and editor. She has 
written many songs and sketches as well as poems. 
But her book " The Sinless Child, and other Poems," 
has proved her genius. She still lives and writes with 
vigor and taste. 

Elizabeth F. Ellet, so well known for her prose 
writings, is also a poet. Griswold gives several pages 
of her originals and translations in his " Female Poets 
of America." 

Anna Peyke Dinnies of South Carolina published, 
in 1846, a riclily illustrated volume, entitled " The 
Floral Year." Griswold says, " Her pieces celebrating 
the domestic affections are marked by unusual grace 
and tenderness ; and some of them are worthy of the 
most elegant poets." 

Sarah Louis P. Smith, nSe Hickman, born in 
Detroit, June 30, 1811. Married, in her eighteenth 
year, Samuel Jenks Smith, editor in Providence, where 
he published a collection of her poems in a volume of 
two hundred and fifty pages, many of which poems 
were written while it was passing through the press< 
She died in February, 1832. 

Sophia Helen Oliver, born in Lexington, Ky., in 
1811. She married Dr. J. H. Oliver in 1837. In 1842 
went to reside permanently in Cincinnati. Her poems 
are spirited and fanciful. 



WOMEN POETS. 265 

Caroline M. Sawyer, n6e Fisher, was bora in 1812, 
in Newton, Mass. A fine sketch of her is published in 
the Universalist " Ladies' Repository." Griswold says, 
" She commenced the composition of verse at an early 
age, but published little till after her marriage. Since 
then she has written much for various reviews and 
other miscellanies, besides several volumes of tales, 
sketches, and essays. . . . She has also made numerous 
translations from the best German literature, in prose 
and verse, in which she has evinced a delicate appre- 
ciation of the original, and a fine command of her 
native language. The poems of Mrs. Sawyer are 
numerous, sufficient for several volumes, though there 
has been published no collection of them. They are 
serious, and of a fresh and vigorous cast of thought, 
occasionally embodied in forms of the imagination, or 
illustrated by a chaste and elegant fancy." Mar- 
garet L. Bailey, daughter of Rev. Thomas Shands, 
born in Sussex County, Va., Dec. 12, 1812, married at 
the West, in 1833, G. Bailey, jun., subsequently editor of 
Cincinnati papers, and then of " The National Era," in 
which papers her poems appeared. "They have less 
individuality than her prose, but they are informed 
with fancy and a just understanding." ^ 

Laura M. Hawley, afterward Mrs. Thurston 
(born 1812, died 1842) was a native of Norfolk, Conn. 
Under the signature of " Viola," Mrs. Thurston had 
made herself known by many productions marked by 
feeling and a melodious versification, which were for 
the most part published in " The Louisville Journal." 
She died in Hartford, Conn., where she taught many 
years. 

Anna Charlotte Botta, a native of Bennington, 

1 Female Poets of America. 



266 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Vt., was a student at a popular young ladies' school in 
Albany, where her writings first attracted attention. 
She afterwards wrote much in prose and verse. " The 
poems of Mrs. Botta are marked by depth of feeling, 
and grace of expression." 

Emily C. Judson was a poet, as already mentioned. 
Her volume is entitled, " An Olio of Domestic Verses." 

"Elizabeth J. Eames, whose maiden name was 
Jessup, is a native of the State of New York, and her 
early years were passed on the banks of the Hudson. 
In 1837 slie was married to Mr. W. S. Eames, and re- 
moved to New Hartford, near Utica, where she has 
since resided." So says Griswold, and tells us also 
that her poems have appeared in " The Tribune," " Gra- 
ham's Magazine," and " The Southern Literary Messen- 
ger." 

Margaret Fuller, Marchioness D'Ossoli, known 
better as a prose writer, also wrote in rhyme. 

Eveline Sherman Smith, born 1823, in New York 
State, published in 1847 a volume entitled, " The 
Fairy's Search, and other Poems." 

Lydia Jane Pierson, a native of Middletown, 
Conn., has published two volumes of poems, *' Forest 
Leaves " in 1845, and " The Forest Minstrel " in 
1847. 

Jane T. Worthington, nSe Lomax, died 1847, 
wrote poems mainly for " The Southern Literary Mes- 
senger," said to be " simple, graceful, and earnest." 

Sarah Anna Lewis (born 1824) was educated at 
Mrs. Willard's school in Troy. She was a native of 
Baltimore, but" removed to Brooklyn upon her mar- 
riage. Her volume, " Records of the Heart," was pub- 
lished in New York, in 1844. The principal poems are 
long ; and one of the minor poems, " The Forsaken," 



WOMEN POETS. 267 

was said by Edgar A. Poe to be " inexpressibly beau- 
tiful." Her second volume was called " The Child of 
the Sea, and other Poems." 

Anna Coea Mowatt Ritchie, better known as an 
actress and reader, wrote poems and dramas, mostly 
brief and fugitive. 

Mary Noel Meigs, in 1845 published an octavo 
volume, entitled " Poems by M. N. M," and has since 
written many poems and prose essays for magazines, 
and volumes of stories for children. She was a 
Bleecker, belonging to the distinguished New York 
family of that name. 

Frances Sargent Osgood, a native of Boston, the 
daughter of Joseph Locke, born " 1812, passed her 
earlier life in Hingham, a village of peculiar beauty, 
well calculated to arouse the dormant poetry of the 
soul ; and here, even in childhood, she became noted 
for her poetical powers." ^ Her poems were published 
in 1839, under the title of " A Wreath of Wild Fowers 
from New England." Mrs. Lydia Maria Child was 
one of the first to perceive the merit of her poetry, and 
invited the young poet to write for a Miscellany she 
was then editing. In 1849 she passed on to a higher 
life, leaving many friends and a holy memory. Her 
poems meet responsive echoes in many hearts, espe- 
'»ially the one on " Labor," 

" Work, and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow ; 
Work, thou shall ride over care's coming billow. 
Lie not down wearied 'neath woe's weeping willow : 
Work with a stout heart and resolute will." 

Lucy Hooper was bom in Newburyport, Mass., 
Feb. 4, 1816, and died in Brooklyn, N.Y., Aug. 1, 1841. 

1 Griswold's Female Poets of Aiuerica. 



268 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

She wrote for years over her initial -i only. In 1840 she 
published an essay on " Domestic Happiness," and a 
volume entitled " Scenes from Real Life," and about 
the same time wrote " The Lost Hours of a Gay 
Poetess," a poem which has sometimes been referred 
io as an illustration of her own history. Her health 
from childhood was precarious, and she suffered for 
many years ; but nothing hindered her studies and 
the compositions which were a labor of love. Whittier 
wrote a beautiful poem in her memory. In 1842 Mr. 
John Keese collected and arrranged " The Literary 
Remains of Miss Hooper," with a memoir ; and in 1848 
an enlarged edition of her poetical works appeared. 

Sarah Edgarton Mayo, already mentioned among 
literary women, was a poetic as well as prose writer. 
" Besides her numerous contributions to ' The New 
Yorker,' 'The New World,' 'The Tribune,' 'The 
Knickerbocker,' and other periodicals, she published, 
in the ten years from 1838 to 1848, ' The Palfreys,' 
' Ellen Clifford, or the Genius of Reform,' ' The 
Poetry of Woman,' ' Spring Flowers,' ' Memoir and 
Poems of Mrs, Julia H. Scott,' ' The Flower Vase,' 
'Fables of Flora,' and 'The Floral Fortune Teller.' 
These are small volumes, and two or three of them 
consist in part of extracts ; but they are all illustrative 
of a delicate apprehension of beauty and truth. She 
died on July 9, 1848." ^ 

Sarah S. Jacobs, daughter of Rev. Bela Jacobs, 
was born in Rhode Island. " Her poems are serious 
and fanciful, and evince cultivation and taste." 

Anna E. Appleton has written poems for young 
and old. Her translations of French and German poems 
show rare poetic taste, and power of versification. 

1 Griswold's Female Poets of America. 



WOMEN POETS. 269 

Susan Archer Talley, of Virginia, lost her hear- 
ing at the age of nine, but continued her studies ; and 
in her fifteenth year her father discovered a manuscript 
volume which showed her poetic ability. From that 
time she was encouraged to write for the press. When 
she was about seventeen, some of her poems appeared 
in " The Southern Literary Messenger." 

Rebecca S. Nichols, n6e Reed, published a volume 
in 1844, entitled " Bernice, or the Curse of Minna, 
and other Poems." She was a native of Greenwich, 
N.J. 

Amelia B. Welby, born in 1821 in Maryland, died 
in 1852. She wrote early poems under signature of 
" Amelia." In 1844 a collection of her poems ap- 
peared in a small octavo volume at Boston, which 
reached several editions. 

But the chapter must close without the names of 
some, or any facts in reference to Harriet McEwen 
Kimball, Kate Putnam Osgood, Emma Lazarus, 
Elizabeth Stoddard, and others who may be men- 
tioned in other parts of this volume. Many who are 
mentioned as prose writers, or in the professions, have 
also, like Harriet Beechbr Stowe, written excellent 
poetry. Reluctantly the list is here closed, with the 
comforting thought, expressed by Longfellow, that, 
whether widely known or not, all were ordained to 
vrrite in the musical flow of rhyme and rhythm. 

" Grod sent his singers upon earth 
With songs of sadness and of mirth, 
That they might touch the hearts of men, 
And bring them back to heaven again." 




CHAPTER IX. 



WOMEN-SCIENTISTS. 



Maria Mitchell — Grace Anna Lewis — Sarali Hackett Stevenson -= 
Ann Maria Redfield — Lydia F. Fowler — Elizabeth C. Agassiz— = 
Antoinette Brown Blackwell, and others. 

'" Resolves for this the dear, engaging dame 
Should shine forever in the rolls of fame ; 
And bids her crown among the stars be placed, 
And with an eternal constellation graced ; 
The golden circlet mounts; and, as it flies, 
Its diamonds twinkle in the distant skies." 

" The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure 
therein." — Psalm cxi. 2. 

SCIENCE knows no sex. The lover of science may- 
be man or woman ; but the love is the same, the 
toil is similar, the rewards which appertain naturally 
are not different, though tlie conventional gain may be 
less with one sex than the other. For many years it 
was supposed that woman could not be a genuine stu- 
dent, and had no capacity for science, if she had for 
literature. One who has written books men may be 

270 



WOMEN-SCiENTlSTS. 271 

proud to understand says, '* I have realized in my in- 
most soul that most subtle outlawry of the feminine 
intellect, which warns it off from the highest fields of 
human research." ' But she has done much already to 
disprove the wisdom and righteousness of such ostra- 
cism. And other women there are who have wooed 
fair Science, and won her favor. Science promotes lon- 
gevity ; certainly the pursuit of science does not short- 
en human life, — the life of woman or of man. " The 
apparent physical strength of such women as Mrs. Som- 
erville," says Rev. Mrs. Blackwell, writing in 1875, 
"who lived to write science and philosophy at ninety 
years, is at least encouraging. Among living wome.u 
there are Miss Martineau, Frances Power Cobbe, 
jind many other robust women of eminent mental 
attainments, in England. In America, Mrs. Child, 
Catherine Beecher, Miss Cushman, Prof. Maria Mitch- 
ell, Drs. Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, Mary L. Booth, 
Grace Greenwood, and the host of women who have 
done the largest share of brain-work in every direction 
for a quarter of a century past, the majority of them, 
have health much above the standard rates. They lead 
as to hope that if they would condescend to give in 
their ' woman's testimony,' according to good old-fash- 
ioned Quaker precedent, they would generally agree 
substantially in the opinion that reasonable brain- work 
habitually performed can have no inherent tendency to 
undermine the feminine constitution." The time is 
fast approaching, when the question of sex will not be 
mentioned in relation to brain-work. Already Harriet 
Martineau's works on political economy have been 
authority with male students ; and the wife of Prof. 
Fawcett of England is to-day furnishing Harvard Col- 

1 Sexes thronghnnt Nature, by Antoinette Brown Blackwell. 



272 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

lege with a manual of political economy. It is time to 
stop sneering, and to show a due respect to scientific 
and literary attainment, regardless of color, clime, or 
sex, acknowledging the kindred fact that scientists are 
cosmopolitan, and that with them knowledge is renown 
as well as power. 

America is younger than Europe and Asia ; but this 
Republic has women belonging to her first century 
whose names will live forever among the votaries of 
science. If Benjamin Franklin reached out his hand to 
the clouds, his relative Maria Mitchell has reached 
hers to the stars ; and, if he recorded wise sayings, hia 
other relative Lydia Fowler has penned wholesome 
truths and scientific facts, both being lovers of science 
and of mankind. Limited space in this book failed to 
encourage extensive research concerning the biography 
of each woman-scientist ; and therefore the record is 
meagre in some instances, — more so than those women 
deserve, or the writer could desire. 

Mabia Mitchell is first mentioned, for she stands 
at the head of the list of scientific women in Am6rica. 
Mrs. Hale says, " Maria Mitchell is the daughter of 
William and Lydia C. Mitchell, descendants of the 
earlier settlers of Nantucket Island, in the State of 
Massachusetts, and members of the society of Friends, 
or Quakers. Mrs. Mitchell (and the father also) de- 
scended from the same stock with Dr. Franklin, whose 
mother was from this island ; and it is quite remarkable, 
that throughout tliis family lineage are to be traced 
some of those traits of character which, in full measure, 
marked tlte character and history of that distinguished 
philosopher. The mother of Miss Mitchell was much 
distinguished, in her youth, for her fondness for books. 
Of these parents. Miss Maria was the third child, born 



WOMEN-SCIENTISTS. 275 

Aug. 1, 1818. . . . From her mother and au excellent 
preceptress, she received the first rudiments of her edu- 
cation, and at the age of eleven entered her father's 
school, alternately as student and assistant teacher. 
To the study and practice of astronomy her father was 
a devotee. . . . Later in life, he became possessed of 
instruments, and engaged in practical operations ; and 
Miss Maria, who had already distinguished herself in 
mathematical learning, was employed as assistant in the 
observatory. 

" The onerous duties of a mere assistant in an estab- 
lishment of this kind are scarcely calculated to attach 
one to the employment: yet Miss Mitchell was en- 
amoured of the prospect of observing by herself, and 
commenced her career by obtaining altitudes of the 
heavenly bodies for the determination of the local time. 
The instrument thus used was the sextant, one of the 
most difficult of the observatory. Mastering this, she 
engaged in the study of the science ; and, familiarizing 
herself with all the instruments, she became skilful in 
their use. From this period she pursued with zeal the 
study of the firmament, devoting much time to the 
examination of nebulae, and sweeping for comets, often 
exposing herself to the elements in the most inclement 
seasons. Nothing can exceed her diligence and in- 
dustry. . . . On the 1st of October, 1847, she discov- 
ered a telescopic comet, for which she obtained the gold 
medal of the King of Denmark ; an interesting account 
of which has been written by Hon. Edward Everett, 
late president of Haivard University. 

" Miss Mitchell calculated the elements of this comet, 
and communicated a memoir on the subject to the 
Smithsonian Institute. She was for some time engaged 
with her fatlier in making the necessary astronomical 



276 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

observations for the mensuration of an arc of the 
meridian between Nantucket and Portland, in the em- 
ployment of Dr. Bache, of the Coast Survey. At the 
invitation of the superintendent, she also made some 
observations at the northern extremity of this arc. 
She was also engaged in the computations of the new 
Nautical Almanac, authorized by the Government of 
the United States, and under the superintendence 
of Lieut. Davis. Amidst all these employments, she 
finds time to read many of the French and German 
mathematical writers, and to keep up with the lit- 
erature of the day. She has been elected a member of 
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the only 
lady having that honor; and subsequently, on nomi- 
nation of Prof. Agassiz, a member of the American 
Association for the Promotion of Science." The honor 
conferred by the King of Denmark on this woman of 
science was the more distinguished, from the fact that 
she had competitors in the Old World, of high astro- 
nomical rank, whom she distanced by her discovery. 

Miss Mitchell is now professor of astronomy and 
director of the observatory in Vassar College, and has 
been the pride of that institution for the past ten or 
eleven years, — a blessing to the pupils, and highly 
esteemed among her fellow-teachers. She is the second 
president, and for the second year, of the association 
for the advancement of woman, popularly known as 
" The Woman's Congress." Besides her scientific at- 
tainments. Prof. Mitchell has written sprightly articles 
(one on " Mary Somerville," in the "Atlantic Monthly ") 
for some of the literary periodicals, and more scientific 
communications for the scientific ones. She has also 
lectured acceptably on astronomical subjects before the 
Boston " Woman's Club," and in other places. Rutgers 



WOMEN-SCIENTISTS. 279 

Female College conferred upon her the honorary degree 
of Doctor of Philosophy.* She has twice visited Europe, 
and added the culture of foreign travel to scientific 
study at home. While abroad she paid particular 
attention to the provision for the higher education of 
girls in Girton College and elsewhere, and reported by 
voice and pen on her return. She is one of the women 
whom her American sisters delight to honor. Long 
may she live to scan the midnight heavens, and win the 
trophies of science, while stars blaze and planets burn ! — 

"And oft, before tempestuous winds arise, 
The seeming stars fall headlong from the skies. 
And, shooting through the darkness, gild the night 
With sweeping glories and long trails of light. "'^ 

Gbace Anna Lewis, another descendant of the 
Quakers, is to be numbered with our women-scientists. 
" The Woman's Journal " for June, 18, 1870, contains 
this paragraph : " The Academy of Natural Sciences, 
in Philadelphia, has just elected three ladies to the 
honors of membership. A month ago, when these can- 
didates were proposed, they were rejected. But last 
week the vote was reconsidered, and they were tri- 
umphantly chosen ; the figures standing forty-five to 
five. The victors in this peaceful battle are three inter- 
esting maidens, — Grace Anna Lewis, Hannah T. Small- 
wood, and Ella Homer. Miss Lewis is an ornithologist; 
Miss Homer, a mineralogist ; and Miss Smallwood, an 
artist in scientific diagrams. So the good cause goes 
forward." 

The writer's first knowledge of Miss Lewis was in 

I Hanover College, Indiana, has conferred on her the degree of LL. D 

' " Saepe etiam Stellas vento impendente videbia 
Praecipites coelo labi ; noctisque per umbram 
Flammarum longoa a tergo albescere tractus." — Viroil. 



280 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

connection with the publication of h6r book, " Natural 
History of Birds : Lectures on Ornithology." This 
was to have been published in ten parts ; but the series 
has never yet been concluded, to the regret of every 
lover of science who has seen the commencement. 
Not alone an observer or student, Miss Lewis has also 
a capacity for profound theorizing on the basis of scien- 
tific apprehension. To her mind the truths of science 
seem revealed. As the old Quaker preachers sensed 
the spirit of their audiences, so she can sense the 
scientific truths which lie so close to the moral ; and 
the book of nature is an unsealed and illuminated 
volume to her. In a private letter to the writer, Misa 
Lewis once wrote : — 

" I suppose you wish to know what led me to the 
study of natural history. I think I learned the love 
of it from my mother ; at least, I never remember a 
time when she did not cultivate in her children a taste 
for it. Early left a widow, and cherishing for her 
husband a love which was never expressed in words, 
she sought to mould the minds left to her charge on 
the model loveliest to her soul. Mere infants when he 
died, we were women before our mother could trust 
herself to speak of our father. Naturally our thoughts 
of this unseen parent mingled with our reverence for 
the Author of all created tilings ; and thus, I think, was 
laid the foundation for a lover of nature. 

" Later in life, it was my privilege to be the chosen 
friend of the sister of a naturalist, herself the author 
of a little book for children, ' Life in the Insect World.' 
Eighteen years ago she bade farewell to earth ; and, 
after a long period, I wished for a studi/ kindred to 
hers. I occupied the leisure of a country home in 
observing the birds which visited us, and dreamed of 



WOMEN-SCIENTISTS. 281 

preparing a little work as a companion to that of my 
friend. 

" * Nuttall on Birds ' was soon exhausted. * Cassin, 
Baird, and Lawrence,' was thrown in my way by acci- 
dent. This was an event. The book was my best 
help ; in fact, it was all I needed at the time. By its 
aid I could identify the species, and their habits I 
observed for myself. Years passed in this manner. 
My studies seldom interfered with household avocations. 
Gardening, walks, or rides, connected with business or 
pleasure, afforded me occasion for after-study. One 
book would contain references to many others ; and, as 
opportunity afforded, the available ones were secured, 
cabinets were examined, friends kindly sent specimens ; 
for, as you have doubtless found, it is the tendency of 
a nucleus to gather to itself. 

" At the time I was ripe for it, I think in 1862, a 
friend procured me an introduction to John Cassin, 
Vice-President of the Academy of Natural Sciences, 
Philadelphia. From hence I date my blessing. I had 
found a masteb, and, as time proved to me, one who 
knew also how to be one of the best of friends. From 
that day I needed no faciUties of study which he could 
procure me. 

" His business or his family cares never made him in- 
accessible. There were always hours when I could 
apply to him. The Academy of Natural Sciences was 
opened to me. My table there was filled to overflow- 
ing with books of his selection ; the museum, with its 
thousands of specimens, could be referred to ; but 
most valuable of all was the personal instruction which, 
in his leisure, he gave with a generosity akin to 
pleasure. 

" Walking in the genial warmth of such a presence, 



282 WOMEN OF THE CENTTJRy. 

I forgot to fear it might fade away. INIay le, who 
could never have known the extent of his benefaction, 
understand it now in the fullest sense! He never 
seemed to think it strange a woman should wish to 
study, and I did not either. He had knowledge, I had 
not ; and he rejoiced in imparting it to me. 

" When a lady once thanked me because of the 
support I was giving to woman, it was really the first 
time I had ever thought of the matter in that light. 
I studied because I wished to find the truth. I am 
writing because there seems to be need of just such a 
work." 

This was in 1867. Later Miss Lewis has commenced 
to lecture on her favorite topics, and in a letter to the 
writer says, " I feel that my life's work is before me, 
in lecturing on zoology to girls just blooming into 
womanhood ; the inspiration being a desire to cultivate 
in them a faith in God, and in his superintending provi- 
dence, which cannot be swept away. This, too, is in 
reality the superstructure on which my book rests, 
philosophy and religion being in my view so intimately 
blended that neither can be wisely separated from the 
other. I am perhaps an enthusiast in the study of 
natural history ; but it is an enthusiasm which draws 
its nourishment from the centre of being. I love nature 
because it teaches me better to comprehend its Author." 
Miss Lewis is still a resident of Philadelphia. As an 
ornithologist she would probably enjoy the sight of a 
woman's unique contribution to the Centennial Expo- 
sition, though the exhibitor perhaps may not be a scien- 
tific seeker of birds. 

Mrs. Sarah E. Bonney, of Sterling, Mass., the only 
contributor from the town to the Centennial Exhibition, 
has two cases of goods, which will attract great atten- 



WOMEN-SCIENTISTS. 285 

tion if their history is known. One case contains 
twenty-five choice birds of all varieties, from a hum- 
ming-bird to an owl, which were all shot by Mrs. Bon- 
ney herself, and stuffed, and mounted on an imitation 
of a laurel-branch. The second case contains several 
bird fans, with wings spread, and the full-size breast 
and head of a dove in the centre of each fan ; also a 
muff, boa, and hat, made out of ducks' feathers, each 
feather being put on separately, and prepared in the 
most delicate way. Mrs. Bonney has prepared these 
things unaided ; and it is said there are but few per- 
sons that can excel her in the use of a gun. The birds 
are all tightly wired to each branch, which also contains 
nests with eggs, &c. Two smaller birds are also seen 
in their nests in the hoUow part of the branches. 
Many of them are of a veiy bright color. 

Sabah Hackett Stevenson made a valuable con- 
tribution to the popular scientific literature, especially 
for the young, in her book entitled " Boys and Girls in 
Biology; or. Simple Studies of the Lower Forms of 
Life ; " based upon the latest lectures of Prof. T. H. 
Huxley, and published by his permission. (The inter- 
esting volume is illustrated by a lady, M. J. Macom- 
ISH.) Further mention of the scientific woman who 
has made good use of her opportunities for study, and 
has consecrated such a portion of her attainments to the 
youth of her country, will be given in the chapter on 
Women Physicians. 

Mary M. Chase (though she would hardly have 
numbered herself among the women of science) was a 
lover of botany. Her biographer says, " During the 
summer of 1849 she made a collection of most of the 
flowers growing in this region [Chatham County, N.Y.], 
comprising some three hundred varieties, put up with 



284: WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

skill and taste in three portfolios, and accompanied with 
a description of each, arranged in an essay of fifty pagea. 
These were sent to the World's Exhibition at London, 
and returned with gratifying testimonials." 

Sabah E. Smith, whose modesty might forbid evcD 
the mention of her name, has been placed among women 
scientists, by a Boston teacher, Louise S. Hotchkiss,^ in 
this manner : " Waltham is composed of one long, 
broad street ; one beautiful river, the Charles ; and one 
beautiful mountain. Prospect. This is Waltham to 
pleasure-seekers ; to men and women of business, it is a 
busy, manufacturing, money-making town ; for the stu- 
dent, it has its intellectual hermits and retreats. It was 
for one of these hermit homes that I made my way 
directly this afternoon, and knocked at a low door of a 
little old-fashioned house, its windows vineclad without, 
and fern and moss clad within. A gentle step ap- 
proached the door, and a light hand raised the latch. 
A figure as graceful as a willow, a sweet, intellectual 
face, a voice of perfect culture, a single woman past 
middle age, the finest botanist and linguist in the State, 
I may say in any State, was before me, and bade me 
enter. We walked into a low room, only two windows, 
every ray of light from which is used in the growth of 
some choice lichen or plant. What a student's nook 
was this ! Here were shells and minerals all classified 
by a scholarly hand ; here were the most exquisitely 
arranged mosses and ferns of every domestic and for- 
eign species, on cards, pressed, and growing ; here was 
the student's desk, piles of books, one open and a mark 
laid just where the lady had left it ; here were pictures 
on the low wall, of learned faces, and lovely Madonna 
faces ; here were schoolbooks belonging to the young 

1 Woman's Journal for 1872, p. 314. 



WOMEN-SCIENTISTS. 285 

girls who came to recite; here was a telescope and 
microscopes which accompany the teacher and pupils in 
their rambles day and evening. The graceful figure 
bends over a table of moss ; and the quiet hand lifts a 
tuft to show me a very rare sight, — the fruiting of a 
species she has never known to fruit in any New Eng- 
land State before. How radiant grows the face over 
this success in developing and perfecting this tiny spray 
of moss I " 

The " Woman's Journal " of Sept. 14, 1872, mentions 
another woman-scientist thus : " At a meeting of the 

American Science Association in New York, Miss 

Swain read a paper entitled, ' Why we differ ; or. The 
Law of Variety.' Miss Swain is the first lady who has 
ever addressed this body. She handled her subject 
very judiciously. By well chosen illustrations from the 
animal and vegetable kingdoms, she showed that excess 
on one side and defect on the other, in the same 
qualities or properties, is the cause of difference ; in 
other words, that all distinction is relative, and pro- 
ceeds by infinite gradations. Men and women differ 
not in elemental composition, but in the proportions of 
their common qualities." 

Mrs. Ellet mentions " a lady residing in Syracuse, 
N. Y., whose social influence has been salutary and 
widely acknowledged. Mrs. Redfield (Ann Maria 
rreadwell) is not only noted for position, but known 
as the author of a popular work, ' Zoological Science , 
or. Nature in Living Forms,' — a book commended by 
Prof. Agassiz as one that would ' do great credit to a 
majority of college professors in this department.' She 
came of distinguished family. Her grandfather devoted 
his entire fortune and best energies to the support 
of American independence in the great struggle for 



286 WOMEN OF THE CENTtJBY. 

nationality, and served his country l:i Congress during 
its first sessions ; while her father obtained distinction 
by his military services in the war of 1812." Mrs. 
Redfield was educated at the school of Mrs. Willard at 
Troy. 

Emma Willard herself may be numbered among 
the women-scientists when it is remembered that she 
wrote a work entitled "A Treatise on the Motive- 
Powers which produce the Circulation of the Blood." 
Mrs. Hale says that this work was the result of four- 
teen years' study, and that its object was to " introduce 
and establish the fact, that the principal motive-power 
which produces circulation of the blood is not, as has 
been heretofore supposed, the heart's action, that being 
only secondary ; but that the principal motive-power is 
respiration^ operating by animal heat, and producing 
an effective force at the lungs." Of this work, " The 
London Critic " said in 1846, " We have here an 
instance of a woman undertaking to discuss a subject 
that has perplexed and baffled the ingenuity of the most 
distinguished anatomists and physiologists who have 
considered it, from Hervey down to Paxton ; and, what 
is more remarkable, so acquitting herself as to show 
that she apprehended, as well as the best of them, 
the difficulties which beset the inquiry; perceived as 
quickly as they did the errors and incongruities of the 
theories of previous writers ; and lastly, herself pro- 
pounded an hypothesis to account for the circulation 
of the blood, and the heart's action, eminently entitled 
to the serious attention and examination of all who 
take an interest in physiological science." 

Al>uiia H. Lincoln Phelps, the sister of Mi-s. Wil- 
lard, was also interested in science. The first work she 
ever published was, in 1829, a large botany. Mrs. Hale 



WOMEN-SCIENTISTS. 287 

says, " Few scientific books have had a more general 
circulation than this ; and for the last twenty years it 
has kept its place as the principal botanical class-book, 
notwithstanding numerous competitors. Her next work 
was a ' Dictionary of Chemistry,' which, though it pur- 
ported to be a translation from the French, contains 
much, in the form of notes and an appendix, that is 
original. With the learned, this work gave the author 
great credit, as it evinced much research and a thor- 
ough knowledge of the science which it illustrated." 
Her Botany and Chemistry for Beginners were also 
widely circiilated and very useful. The first book 
which the writer of this volume ever purchased with 
her own money — a child's hoard — was this " Botany 
for Beginners ; " and it was one of the few books saved 
from the great fire of 1846 in Nantucket, and will never 
pass from her possession till she has no longer need of 
books. Mrs. Hale says, " It was for her pupils that her 
scientific works were prepared. No woman in America, 
nor any in Europe excepting Mrs. Marcet and Mrs. 
Somerville, has made such useful and numerous con- 
tributions to the stock of available scientific knowledge 
as Mrs. Phelps : yet had she not been a teacher, and 
found the need of such works, it is very doubtful 
whether she would have prepared them." 

Margaret Coxe, the principal of a seminary for 
young ladies in Cincinnati, wrote " Botany of the 
Scriptures," and " Wonders of the Deep," which were 
calculated to instruct young readers, and awaken a love 
of science. Lydia F. Fowler, the daughter of Gideon 
Folger of Nantucket, and thus a descendant of Peter 
Folger, the grandfather of Dr. Franklin, was early 
a teacher on her native island, then married L. N. 
Fowler, the celebrated phrenologist, and has since be- 



288 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

come famed herself as a writer, lecturer, and physician. 
She is now practising her profession with great succees 
in England. The book which leads to the mention of 
her name among women-scientists is a little work on 
astronomy, published in New York City about a quarter 
of a century ago. 

Mary' Treat should be mentioned as one whose 
interesting articles on microscopic observations of 
various objects, published in the *' New York Tribune," 
the " Popular Science Monthly," &c., have won the 
approbation of lovers of science. 

Helen S. Conant has furnished young readers with 
a valuable introduction to the study of entomology in 
her book, "■ The Butterfly Hunters," published in 1868. 

Fanny I. Burqe Smith has furnished for young 
readers, " Our Birds," published by the American Tract 
Society, who in publishing also " Frank's Search for Sea- 
Shells," and a smaller volume called " Land Shells," by 
the same author, whose name is not given, have done 
the world of boys and girls good service. 

Antoinette Brown Blackwell, who will be 
mentioned more fully elsewhere, has added to the 
scientist's library two valuable books, " Sexes Through- 
out Nature," and " Studies in General Science." With 
a pleasant memory of her brother's (Rev. William B. 
Brown, of Newark, N. J.) extensive cabinet of shells, 
and an acknowledgment of his superior attainments as a 
conchologist, the writer is inclined to expect yet more 
from the pen of Mrs. Blackwell, in days to come, of 
a scientific character, not unmingled with the lofty 
utterances of Christian philosophy. Mrs. P. V. Hath- 
away exhibits at the Centennial Exposition, in two 
cases of great interest to botanists, an herbarium of 
grapes, wild flowers, ferns, and the blossoms of shrubs. 



WOMEN-SCIENTISTS. 289 

constituting the native flora of Illinois ; Jennie Wat- 
son has prepared North American mosses for exhibition 
there also, dried and neatly arranged on cards. Two 
women of the century who are interested in botanical 
science ! 

It is certainly proper to mention the name of Eliza- 
beth C. Agassiz as one who has assisted largely by 
her sympathy and personal aid in the scientific dis- 
coveries and explorations of one whose name she bears, 
and whom America adopted and honored. She is a 
Boston lady, and wrote the text of a book called 
" Seaside Studies in Natural History," published over 
her name and that of her son Alexander Agassiz. The 
marine animals of Massachusetts Bay, especially the 
radiates, are described in this volume, which was 
published with the hope of furnishing a seaside book of 
a popular character. It is evidently the first one of a 
series which, it is hoped, will some day be issued in 
full. 

Mbs. Eeminnie a. Smith, nee Piatt, has one of the 
finest cabinets of fossils, shells, gems, Indian articles, 
etc., in the country. Among its treasures is a piece of 
amber containing a small lizard. Mrs. Smith is a native 
of New York State, and was a pupil of Mrs. Emma Wil- 
lard. She early manifested an interest in scientific mat- 
ters, studied for four years in the School of Mines at 
Freyburg, Germany, is a member of the New York 
Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the American As- 
sociation for the Advancement of Science. She lectures 
at times upon " Gems," etc., has had published several 
papers on " Amber," etc., and, in connection with the 
Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institute, she 
" has undertaken to prepare a series of chrestomathics of 
the Iroquois language, and has already made much prog- 



290 WOMEN OF THOE CENTTJRy. 

ress. She has also collected interesting material relating 
to the mythology, habits, customs, etc., of these Indians ; 
and her contributions will be interesting and important." 
So says the Report of the Bureau Director, Major 
Powell. 

With a sense of the incompleteness of this record, 
yet glad and grateful for the work of the women men- 
tioned, this chapter is closed with the full assurance 
that there are many scientific women in other pro- 
fessions, and many students of natural history in our 
country, who, like Mabia L. Owen,i find " tongues in 
the trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in 
stones, and good in every thing," and in quiet ways 
help others to the beautiful study of God's wonderful 
works. 

1 Formerly the writer's teacher in Nantucket • now a resident of 
^is'rjngfield, Mass. 




CHAPTER X. 

WOMEN ARTISTS. 

Harriet Hosmer — Emma Stebbins — Eliza Greatorex — Lily M. Spen. 
cer — Margaret Foley — May Alcott — Emily Sartain — Mary B. 
Mellen, and others. 

" Art is wondrous long; 
Yet to the wise her paths are ever fair, 
And Patience smiles, though Genius maydespair." 
O. W. Holmes. 



" Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the 
gates." — Proy. xxxi. 31. 

WOMAN has succeeded in art ; not in the earlier 
centuries perhaps, when the freedom of Chris- 
tianity was not known ; but ever since she has been 
progressing in the appreciation and practice of that 
art which creates or embalms the beautiful. The 
Romans haa one woman painter, we are told ; and she 
is said to be of Greek origin. Her name was Laya. 

Germany produced the first woman sculptor, — Sa- 
BiNA VON Steinbach. Mrs. Ellet has traced the work 
of women as artists ; and her volume is most cordially 
recommended to all who would know what woman has 
achieved in other ages and other lands. " Women 

291 



292 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Artists " is a book of which it may be said, it is as 
useful as unique. England thought so, and therefore 
a London publisher reprinted it. But it first appeared 
from the press of the Harpers. Another New York 
firm, Hurd and Houghton, has done lovers of art good 
service in publishing " A Handboolj of Legendary and 
Mythological Art," by another woman, Clara Erskinb 
Clement. In this chapter mention can only be made 
of American artists, and that briefly. The mother 
of Benjamin West deserves honorable mention for the 
encouragement her kiss gave to her son when he had 
sketched the picture of his infant sister ; but many 
other mothers, consciously or unconsciously, have given 
similar help and encouragement to their children. 
Many, by cherishing a love of the beautiful, have 
secured a pre-natal influence for their children, which 
has afterwards developed into artistic skill and genius. 

Mrs. Ellet mentions the names of Rosalba Torrens, 
Eliza Torrens, Mary Mltiray, and Madame Plan- 
tea u, as painters ; also Mrs. Lupton as a modeller, as 
well as painter. She speaks of Charlotte Demlhg, 
Jane Sully, and a Miss O'Hara, as artists of merit ; 
and adds, "Mrs. Goodrich of Boston painted an 
excellent portrait of Gilbert Stuart, which was engraved 
by Durand for the National Portrait Gallery. Her 
miniatures have great merit, and are marked by truth 
and expression. 

** Margaret Foley was a member of tl.e New Eng- 
land School of Design, and gave instruction in drawing 
and painting. She resided in Lowell, and was fre- 
quently applied to for her cameos, which she cut beau- 
tifully. Miss Sarah Mackintosh was accustomed to 
draw on stone for a large glass company ; and other 
ladies designed in the carpet factory at Lowell, and in 



WOMEN AUTISTS. 293 

the Merrimack Print Works, showing the ability of 
women to engage in such occupations." Mrs. Ellet 
devotes several pages to an interesting account of 
Anna C. Pe.\le, now Mrs. Duncan, and Sarah M. 
Peale and Rosalba Peale, her sisters. They, and 
others of their family, were portrait-painters , and in 
that part of the century when the sun was not acknowl- 
edged as an artist, and photography was wholly un- 
known, they found their artistic career an exceedingly 
busy one, and quite prosperous. For the portraits 
of children, double price was charged. " The name of 
Leslie ha« been placed by a painter of eminent merit 
among the most distinguished of this century ; and his 
sister, Ann Leslie, has contributed to its fame." 
Mrs. Wilson, a native of Cooperstown, N.Y., but a 
dweller in Cincinnati when Mrs. Ellet prepared her 
volume. " A gentleman acquainted with Mrs. Wilson 
mentioned an incident that occurred on a journey to 
the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. Struck with the 
aspect of a distinguished person in the company, — 
Mr. Emerson, — the sculptress gave directions to stop 
near a bank of soft red clay, and, putting out one 
hand to grasp a sufficient portion of the material, with 
the other she signed to her subject to remain motion- 
less. In a few moments she had modelled a very cred 
itable likeness of the author." 

Mrs. Dubois of New York showed great talent for 
sculpture and cameo-cutting. She is said to have dis- 
covered her abihty in this way : " Her father had his 
bust taken. Before the casting, he asked his daughter 
her opinion of it as a hkeness. She pointed out some 
defects, which the artist corrected in her presence, 
upon which she exclaimed, 'I could do that,' and 
requested the sculptor to give her some clay, from 



294 WOMEN OF THE CENTURA. 

which she modelled with but little labor the bust of 
her husband, and was eminently successful in the like- 
ness." She afterwards studied in Italy. 

Anne Hall of Pomfret, Conn., the daughter of a 
physician, was encouraged by her father, who procured 
for her a box of colors from China. Visiting in New- 
port, R.I., she studied with Samuel King, and she cop- 
ied from the old masters on ivory in miniature. She 
finally came to excel in painting portraits thus. " The 
soft colors seem breathed on the ivory, rather than 
applied with the brush. A miniature group often sold 
for five hundred dollars." She was elected unani- 
mously to membership in the National Academy of 
Design. Mrs. Ellet says, " One of the best of her ori- 
ginal compositions is a group of a mother and child, — 
Mrs. Jay and her infant. The first, clasping the babe 
to her bosom, has a Madonna-like beauty ; the child is 
perfect in attitude and expression. Another group of a 
mother and two young children, the widow and orphans 
of the late Matthias Brueu, has a most charming ex- 
pression. One of the children was painted as a cherub 
in a separate picture, much valued by artists as a rare 
specimen of skill. Miss Hall has also painted the por- 
traits in miniature of many persons distinguished in the 
best social circles of New York. Several of her groups 
have been copied in enamel in France, and thus made 
indestructible. Three children of Mrs. Ward, with a 
dog and bird ; a child holding a grape-vine branch ; 
with portraits of Mrs. Crawford, widow of the sculptor, 
Mrs. Divie Bethune, and the daughters of Gov. King, 
— may be mentioned among numerous works, a single 
one of which has sufficient merit to establish the 
author's claim to the reputation which she has long 
enjoyed, of being the best of American miniaturists." 



WOMEN ARTISTS. 295 

Mary Swinton Leqare (Mrs. Bullen) "had a 
great-grandfather and two grandfathers, besides other 
relatives, in the patriot army of the Revolution," where 
youths of sixteen and eighteen often fought beside their 
grandsires. She was a native of South Carolina, and 
was born in Charleston. She became skilled in the 
dehneation of animals and landscapes, the latter en- 
gaging her special enthusiasm. In 1849 she removed 
to Iowa. There she established " Legar^ College," for 
the liberal education of women, at West Point, in Lee 
County. When Mrs. Ellet wrote of her, seventeen 
years ago, she was about to resume her pencil. 

At the same time Mrs. Ellet wrote as follows : " Jane 
Stuart was the youngest child of Gilbert Stuart, the 
eminent portrait-painter. Like many of her sisters in 
art, she inherited the genius she discovered in early 
life ; but it was not till after her father's death that the 
talent she had shown found development in the prac- 
tice of art. She has resided for a long time at New- 
port, R.I., in the enjoyment of the celebrity hei 
talents have acquired. 

" Mrs. Heldreth of Boston deserves mention, espe- 
cially for her portraits of children in crayon. Miss 
May painted landscapes in Allston's style. Mrs. Orvis 
has been mentioned as a flower-painter of remarkable 
skill. Hoyt remarked that he knew nothing better in 
coloring than her autumn leaves and wild flowers. In 
this style Mrs. Badger of New York has acquired 
reputation by her book of ' The Wild Flowers of 
America,' published in 1859. The drawings were all 
made and colored from nature by herself. Mrs. Haw- 
thorne of Boston has painted many beautiful pieces. 
An ' Endymion,' which was greatly admired, she pre- 
sented to Mr. Emerson. She also modelled the head 



296 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

of Laura Bridgman. Mrs. Hill is a highly successfuj 
miniature-painter. Mrs. Greatorex is a landscape- 
painter of merit, and is rapidly acquiring distinction."' 
Since Mrs. Ellet wrote the above, so many years have 
passed, that some of these ladies may have passed to 
the other life : and it is possible that some of them 
are not American women ; for Mrs. Ellet mentions 
among others Herminie Dassel, who was a Prussian, 
but came to America in 1849, and was a successful 
painter. The Athenaeum at Nantucket contains her 
very accurate portrait of the last Indian of the island, 
and his surroundings in his hut. A more interesting 
picture still, from her easel, is one representing the 
astronomers William and Maria Mitchell, and Kate, 
the youngest daughter of the family, noting their 
observations. This is as good a description of the 
picture as memory allows. Mrs. Dassel died in 1857, 
and was buried in Greenwood. 

A writer, in speaking of " Centennial Art Work," thus 
refers to one of the artists above mentioned : " Mrs. 
Eliza Greatorex, who has won fame not only in this 
country, but in Europe, stands at the head, among 
women, of etching and pen-and-ink drawing. Until 
her husband's death she studied art as an amateur, 
being a member of a sketching-club, and working with 
an enthusiastic love of the work ; but when thirty-foiu: 
years of age her husband died, and she was left with 
two daughters and no property. Then, with the 
encouragement and aid of her friends of the club, she 
began in earnest to use her gifts and knowledge as 
a means of support. For seventeen years she taught 
drawing ; fifteen years in Miss Maine's school, who 
gave her fullest liberty to work out her own peculiar 
ideas and methods of teaching. During this time she 



WOMEN ARTISTS. 297 

was one year abroad, studying in Paris ; and again, 
three years ago, she spent two years abroad with her 
daughters, studying with them in Munich. 

She now has in hand a peculiar work for the centen- 
nial year. She has secured panels and woodwork from 
the old historical houses and churches that have been 
or are being torn down, working with her daughter, 
who decorates the panels with appropriate designs : 
she paints or sketches in the centre, using for her theme 
some historical event that has given interest to the build- 
ing. She has made an art-gallery of the first floor of 
their dwelling, in which her pictures and works will be 
for exhibition and sale, and where worshippers of the 
ancient can admire and buy by piecemeal the interior 
of St. Paul's, the pulpit of the old Fulton-street Church, 
a quantity of wood from the old Roger Morris house 
upon Washington Heights, of pre-Revolutionary times, 
or any other ancient building for which their hearts 
may hunger." 

A New York newspaper has also published the fol- 
lowing paragraph : — 

" Mrs. Eliza Greatorex, recently at the Association 
Building, has now opened a studio at her residence in 
Twenty-third Street, where she is at present teaching 
her daughters the art of reproducing etchings on plain 
glass. These young ladies have received a thorough 
training in di-awing, but as yet do not exhibit ; Mrs. 
Greatorex, with a feehng that does her infinite honor, 
preferring that they should wait until their works can 
stand on their own merit, and not through the influ- 
ence of her name. Both of these ladies evince talents 
of a high order, and are already becoming known in a 
quiet way in art circles." 

Mrs. Greatorex did not commence her career as an 



298 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

artist till past thirty. Her best-known work is a series 
of drawings from many of the old landmarks about the 
city of New York. They have been photographed, and 
published in a volume called " Old New York." 

Women have shown artistic ability in carving during 
our first century. P. Thorne, in writing to the " Chris- 
tian Register," April 17, 1876, said, " Last week some 
pieces of wood-carving done by young ladies of Cincin- 
nati for the Centennial were on exhibition in Mitchell 
& Rammelsberg's windows on Fourth Street, where 
they attracted many admirers. There was a bedstead 
of antique pattern, the high headboard and the whole 
woodwork covered with fine and elaborate carving of 
delicate designs ; also a shaving-stand, and what may 
in centennial times properly be called a ' chest of 
drawers.' The two Misses Johnson have worked six 
months on this bedstead alone. One room in the 
Women's Centennial Building at Philadelphia is to be 
entirely furnished with furniture carved by the ladies 
of Cincinnati. One lady is doing a mantel-piece in a 
variety of woods, said to be very beautiful by those 
who have seen it. Others are carving an organ-case, a 
piano-case, a table, &c. The ladies of Cincinnati have 
contributed five thousand dollars towards erecting the 
Woman's Centennial Building, and have still some 
thousands left, to be used in forwarding women's work 
in Philadelphia. This money was raised at the Wo- 
man's Centennial Fair held last May. From the first, 
the Cincinnati ladies have taken an active interest in 
the Centennial. Art-work is very fashionable here. 
Many of the ' first ' ladies go regularly to the School 
of Design, to learn carving, painting, &c. An unusual 
interest in, and knowledge of, art seems to" be diffused 
through the community. Painting china teacups and 



WOMEN ARTISTS. 299 

sets is another popular accomplishment, each lady 
designing patterns to please herself." 

An artist friend speaks to the writer of Miss .Jesseh 
Curtis of Brooklyn, not known as a painter, but 
deserving of notice as a lady of much genius, who 
illustrated Miss Phelps's " Gates Ajar." Her drawings 
are remarkable for spirituality and grace ; and she is 
especially successful in her delineation of children. 
Besides many book-illustrations, she has drawn for 
the " Graphic " and other New York weekly publica- 
tions. 

Miss Fidelia Bridges of Brooklyn is a painter well 
known for her faithful and charming studies of bits of 
out-door nature. Her works are much sought and 
highly prized by art-patrons ; and she is well represented 
in the water-color exhibit at Memorial Hall, Philadel- 
phia. Some one wrote of her this year in a New York 
paper, — 

" Miss Bridges is a poet as well as a painter, and 
her delicate bits of canvas are faithful mirrors of 
Nature. She loves the cool, gray sands of the sea- 
side, and the neglected bits of landscapes. The birds 
she introduces into many of her pictures are exqui- 
sitely painted. She is represented in the Academy 
by ' Blackberry Bushes,' ' Marsh Flowers,' ' The Edge 
of a Pasture,' ' Catkins,' and ' The Mouth of a River.' " 

Miss Ellen D. Hale, daughter of Rev. Edward 
Everett Hale of Boston, is a young artist who has 
painted several pictures of great merit, among which 
may be mentioned a portrait of remarkable excellence ; 
also, " A Boy Reading," which is now at the Centen- 
aial Exposition. 

Miss Anna M. Lea is a very fine portrait-painter. A 
«orrespondent of " The New York Herald " thus wrote 



300 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

of her : " Miss A. M. Lea from New York, now a stu- 
dent of art in London, has achieved a success and 
created a sensation of which all Americans may be 
proud. Miss Lea came to England some three years 
ago quite unheralded ; but at once, through her merit 
alone, commanded attention. The very first picture 
which she sent to the Academy was accepted, a com- 
pliment which has seldom been paid to an unknown 
artist, even among those who have afterward gained 
high distinction. But these American girls have a way 
of making their way wherever they appear. This 
year Miss Lea contributes three pictures, all of them 
of unusual beauty and power ; so remarkable, indeed, 
that we can, without fear, predict that this young artist 
has a great career before her, and will win a high place 
in the temple of fame." 

Our foremothers in the far-off Pilgrim days were 
artists in a very small way with their needles. In 
Plymouth, Mass., may be seen a piece of Pilgrim 
needlework, embroidered with colored silk, now sadly 
faded, in 1655, by a daughter of Capt. Miles Standish, 
and bearing this devout prayer : — 

"Lorea Standish is my name. 
Lord, guide my heart that I may doe thy will ; 
Also fiU my heart with such convenient skill, 
As may conduce to virtue, void of shame, — 
And I wiU give the glory to thy name." 

Samplers are not worked now so much as formerly ; 
but the women of the first part of the century were 
wont to exhibit their artistic ability more with the 
needle, and with colored worsteds or silks, than with 
the pencil. They were in the habit of embroidering 
muslin, and making lace-work. And though such 



WOMEN ARTISTS. 301 

skill may not be artistic in one sense, it is in another , 
and it is a fact, doubtless, that the children of mothers 
who evinced great interest and skill in embroidery 
and lace-work have received an inheritance of taste 
and skill which have made them artists with brush and 
chisel. 

Mrs. Pabthenia S. Post of Jersey City possessed 
the skill above mentioned, was a perfect artist with the 
needle (as an embroidered cape and collar show, which 
are marvels in their way), and her daughter, CoB- 
NELIA S. Post, has inherited taste and skill which 
have enabled her to make pen-and-ink-sketches, cray- 
on portraits, water-color and oil paintings, with great 
success, and to engrave on wood. Having a father of 
superior mathematical ability, and inventive genius 
also,^ no wonder that the culture gained in the New 
York School of Design and elsewhere was not in vain. 
Miss Post has designed nearly all the vignettes in this 
volume, and drawn them on wood. A Boston lady. 
Miss Frances A. Smith, has engraved them. Miss 
Post is a native of Montpelier, Vt., but is of New 
Hampshire stock, her parents being from Lebanon, 
N.H. During the lifetime of her father, she was often 
a valued assistant to him, drawing and engraving dia- 
grams of his plans for bridges. Crayon portraits of 
her father and mother, and the writer of this volume, 
show that the difficult process of transferring to the 
canvas " the human face divine " is one of the gifts 
bestowed by Providence upon her ; and, if the posses- 
sion of a competency did not keep her among the 
amateur artists, her genius, shown through a commen- 
surate industry, would give her high place among those 
who stand before the easel, and transfer the beauty of 
nature to the canvas. 

1 S. S. Post, an inv«uior of iron bridges 



302 WOMEN OP THK CENTURY. 

" The Liberal Christian " thus speaks of another 
artist : — 

" Miss Mary Hallock, who illustrated ' The Hang- 
ing of the Crane ' and ' Mabel Martin ' so admirably, 
though her name was recently changed to Mrs. Foote, 
will not abandon her beautiful art in her California 
home. Milton, upon the Hudson, ISIiss Halleck's home, 
had been the inspiration of her pictures, her Quaker 
relatives appearing in several of her figures; but still 
more the scenery she loved has been sketched with 
rare fidelity and consummate grace." 

"Miss Sarah Clarke, sister of Rev. Dr. James 
Freeman Clarke, has for several years resided in Rome, 
where, by her gentle courtesy and sparkling vivacity, 
she has won for herself a large circle of friends. She 
has an artistic-looking apartment on the Via Quattro 
Fontane, overlooking the beautiful grounds of the 
Barberini Palace. She is now engaged on her great 
work on Dante." So says one newspaper writer ; and 
another adds, "The Dante drawings of Miss Sarah 
Clarke are thus spoken of by Aune Brewster in a letter 
from Rome : ' The contents of the books are very 
charming, — large pen-and-ink drawings of places 
visited by Dante, places made immortal by the great 
Italian poet. All these drawings have been made with 
the greatest care from studies which Miss Clarke exe- 
c -ted on the ground. She has traversed Italy as a true 
Dante pilgrim ; and these two beautiful books, unique 
and rare gems, are the results of her intelligent labor.' 
Miss Clarke, it must be remembered, was almost the 
only pupil Washington Allston ever had." 

Imoqene Robinson Morell has become noted for 
her historical paintings, of which a correspondent of 
" The Boston Journal " said, when they were exhibited 



WOMEN ARTISTS. 303 

there, "They are spoken of in terms of the highest 
admiration by artists and art-critics, both at home and 
abroad. They are the result of long years of study 
and labor, under the first masters in France and Ger- 
many, and show great genius, inspired by patriotic 
enthusiasm. . . . The composition is strictly original 
in all its details : each figure and every animal was 
painted from a living model, after the strictest rules of 
genuine art. . . . 

" No one should lose the opportunity of seeing these 
pictures. The children of our families, and, indeed, all 
our schools, should be taken to Amory Hall to enjoy 
them, and to hear their stories, so pleasantly told, — 
that they may thus have impressed on their minds the 
fact that American liberty was not obtained but at a 
mighty cost. 

" We hear that Mrs. Morrell will leave Boston very 
soon, and that the pictures may be purchased for the 
Capitol at Washington. If this shall prove true, we 
only wish there was better company for them there ! 
But the day must come ere long, when some miserable 
daubs that deface the walls, through " lobbying," and 
disgrace good pictures there, may be replaced by works 
of real art. Such Mrs. Morrell's are pronounced to be, 
by Mr. Washburne, our Minister to France, Gustave 
Dor^, Isadore and JuKet Bonheur, Healy, Merle, and 
the eminent historical painter, Philippoteaux, and 
scores of others of equal standing. 

" Of pictures which draw forth the praise of such 
men, we, as Americans, may be justly proud ; and we 
should be grateful to our gifted countrywoman who has 
so nobly represented us, both in the art circles and in 
society abroad, not less by her genius than by her quiet 
womanly virtues and her lieroism during the siege of 



304 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Paris, for even its horrors had not power to draw hei 
from her work. Let us not withhold from Mrs. MorreD 
the applause which foreigners so freely bestow upon 
her and her works." 

" I. G.," in " The Boston Commonwealth," sayi, 
" Mrs. Morrell has been devoted to art from her early 
years. She left Boston some fifteen years ago, since 
which time she has studied at Dusseldorf with Schroe- 
der, and Camphausen, now court painter of the emperor 
of Germany, and with Couture in France, from whom, 
and other distinguished artists, she has received testi- 
monials of their appreciation of her talents. The pic- 
tures will remain in Boston only a day or two next 
week, before going to Philadelphia for exhibition." 

Mrs. Ellet mentions the names of Mrs. Woodman, 
Mrs. RuGGLES, and Miss Caroline May, as fine land- 
scape-artists seventeen years ago. She also speaks of 
crayon heads by Miss Gore, flowers by Miss Gran- 
bury, and interior scenes by Juliana Oakxey. 

Mrs. Ellet devotes a large part of a chapter, in her 
work on " Women Artists," to an interesting sketch of 
Lily Martin Spencer, the well-known painter of 
" Truth Unveiling Falsehood." As she was born in 
England of French parents, we do not count her among 
the women of our century, but coming to America 
when but six years old her life has been American, and 
few have any suspicion that she is not native born. 

Louisa Lander of Salem, Mass., is a distant rela- 
tive of Benjamin West, and a descendant of Ca.pt. 
Richard Derby, noted in the Revolutionary struggle. 
" In various branches of her family has artistic talent 
shown itself. Her grandmother and her mother were 
remarkable for their fondness for art, and gave evidence 
thereof in works of their own. In the old family 



WOMEN ARTISTS. 305 

mansion, where Louisa's childhood was spent, are carv- 
ings upon the walls and over the lofty doors, designed 
by her grandmother, and executed under her directions. 
Similar designs, evincing both taste and skill, decorated 
the mahogany furniture ; and the canopies and cover- 
ings of the furniture were embroidered by the lady, 
according to the fashion of the day, her own fancy sup- 
plying the beautiful designs. It can hardly be said 
when commenced the artist-life of the young girl 
brought up under such influences." 

Even in childhood she modelled heads for dolls with 
surprising skill, and her early drawings were marvels 
of excellence for a pupil. She left her native land to 
seek the culture of Rome, and was there a pupil of 
Crawford, — his only pupil, — and exhibited from the 
first great skill in portraits. She finished the bust of 
Chief- Justice Shaw in marble for Gore Hall, — the Har- 
vard library. " This talent for likenesses is observable 
in the first efforts of Miss Lander. When very young, 
before she had attempted modelling, she carved from an 
old alabaster clock, with a penknife, several heads and 
faces in bas-relief. These were noticed by a friend, 
who gave her a bit of shell and some gravers, and at 
once, without the least instruction, she carved a head 
in cameo. Likenesses of her mother and other friends 
were made, and pronounced very striking." 

She executed a fine portrait of Hawthorne and a 
bas-relief of Mountford. She made also a charming 
statuette of Virginia Dare, and afterward a statue of 
life size in marble. She executed '' To-day " and 
" Galatea," " Evangeline " and "■ Elizabeth, the Exile 
of Siberia," all of them delightful each in its own way. 
and to these she has added " Undine," as a sculptured 
creation of beauty, " Ceres Mourning for Proserpine." 



306 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

and " A Sylph." These are all mentioned by Mrs. 
Ellet, Miss Lander has continued to brighten the 
world of art by her genius. May she long live to 
mould clay, and chip marble into forms of loveliness I 

Jennie E. Bartlett of Harmony, Me., was bom 
with a love of art that could not be repressed. She has 
succeeded as a portrait-painter, after struggles worthy 
of the prize she sought, and gives proof of a native 
energy and ability, which promises still very much more 
than she has yet wrought. 

Miss Margaret Hicks, who graduated in architect- 
ure from Cornell University, is the first woman in a col- 
lege to undertake this profession. The theme selected 
by Miss Hicks, as her Commencement Essay, was the 
" Tenement House," and she seemed — unlike many of 
the architects who have sent plans to New York for 
which premiums are offered — to have remembered that 
houses must have light and air, closets and bed-rooms. 

Kate N. Doggett is a well known patroness of art, 
with much ability as an artist, and especially as an art- 
critic. She resides in Chicago, and since her return 
from Europe has favored the formation of artists' socie- 
ties, and given great encouragement to young artists in 
various ways. Of Rebecca A. Morse of New York 
City very much the same may be said. She has been 
the chairman of the art committee of Sorosis for sev- 
eral years, and her papers on art have been worthy of 
wide circulation. She has bravely battled for art as 
represented in chromos, believing that good chromos 
are better than poor oil paintings, and that chromos 
may educate and adorn as well as other pictures, and 
because of their greater cheapness perform a greater 
work in educating children, because more homes can 
afford to purchase them. As the wife of Prof. Morse, 



WOMEN ARTISTS. 307 

the artist and teacher, this lady has superior advantages 
in respect to criticism and information, which have 
been well improved. Many a struggling artist has 
been blessed by her kind encouragement and benevo- 
lent hand. 

Mart Weston, nee Pillsbury, is mentioned at some 
length by Mrs. Ellet. She was born in Hebron, N.H., 
the daughter of a Baptist clergyman. " One day, 
when between seven and eight, she noticed a beautiful 
woman ; and, returning home, went quietly to her 
father's study, creeping in, as it was locked, through 
two panes of a window, to which she climbed by a 
chair on the bed, in search of a slate and pencil. With 
this she began to make a sketch of the face that had 
charmed her. She made the oval outline, but could 
not give the expression about the mouth and eyes. 
With a keen sense of disappointment she relinquished 
the hopeless task. But the artist-passion was awak- 
ened within her." As the years rolled on, it was found 
that the task was not hopeless, though she had little 
encouragement from those about her. She was poorly 
furnished with materials. " For the colors of her 
flowers Mary used beet-juice, extract of bean-leaves 
prepared by herself, etc., till the welcome present of a 
box of paints made her independent of such contriv- 
ances." After many vicissitudes, graphically told by 
Mrs. Ellet, she was married to one who appreciated her 
genius ; and from that time she painted as much as was 
consistent with the care or her two children. Her 
copies from the old masters are considered admirable, 
and her portraits excellent. 

JuiiiA DU Pre, a native of Charleston, S.C, who 
afterward married Henry Bonnethean, is esteemed as a 
lovely woman, and fine artist, according to Mrs. EUet's 



308 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

testimony. The Misses Withers of Charleston are also 
mentioned as good painters in oil, and as having ability 
in cutting cameos. Charlotte Chevbs of Columbia, 
S.C., and Ellen Cooper of the same place, and Mary 
Ann Douglas, now Mrs. Johnson of Westfield, 
Mass., are on Mrs. Ellet's pages as artists of worth. 

" About seven years ago " (now thirty), says 
.Mrs. Ellet, " a School of Design for Women was 
started by Miss Hamilton, which, supported by volun- 
tary contributions, met with encouraging success. It 
has now been adopted by the trustees of the Cooper 
Institute, and a sum is allowed annually for the support 
of teachers." 

Emma Stebbtns is a native of New York City ; and 
from Mrs. Ellet's sketch we learn that she was a pupil 
of Henry Inman in oU-painting, and that to this aid 
some of her friends attributed the masterly correctness 
and grace displayed in her portraits, and for which 
afterward her crayon sketches were so much admired. 

One of her early works was a volume to which she 
gave the title, " A Book of Prayer." It contains some 
beautiful specimens of her poetry, but is chiefly remark- 
able for its exquisite illuminations. Some of her crayon 
portraits, executed in Rome, received the highest enco- 
miums from acknowledged judges in that city. A copy 
she made of the " St. John " of Du Bceuf, and one from 
a painting in the gallery of the Louvre, representing 
" A Girl Dictating a Love-Letter," were noted among 
her oil-paintings. Her " Boy and Bird's Nest " was 
done in the style of Murillo. Her pastel-painting of 
" Two Dogs " has been highly praised. Almost every 
branch of the imitative art has been at different periods 
cultivated by Miss Stebbins, and her success proves 
the scope and versatility of her talent. Besides painting 



WOMEN AKTIST8. 309 

in oil and water colors, she has practised drawing on 
wood and carving wood, modelling in clay, and working 
in marble. It is probably in the dilBficult art of sculp- 
ture that she will leave to America the works by which 
she will be most widely known. She profited, like 
Miss Hosmer, by the counsels and supervision of Gibson, 
and the careful instruction of Akers. 

Several works from her chisel command high praise, 
especially her statues of " Industry " and " Commerce," 
her statue of " Sandalphon," and the exquisite fountain 
now in Central Park, representing an angel, with other 
figures and carvings above and beneath the basin. 
Chief among her busts is one in marble of her cher- 
ished friend Charlotte Cushman, whose place is the 
Boston Athenaeum, but which is on exhibition at the 
Centennial Exposition. 

Mary B. Mellbn ; born in Sterling, Mass. ; her 
parents, Reuben and Sally Blood, still residing there in 
a green old age. This artist can hardly remember 
when she began using the brush, so early did she 
manifest an interest in painting. She was taught to 
use water-colors in her native place, at a boarding- 
school conducted by a Miss Thayer. She attended 
afterward the Fryville Seminary in Bolton, Mass., 
which was then under the auspices of the Quakers. 
Her parents fearing that her love of art would bar her 
progress in other directions as a student, if indulged, 
designed to have her paint-box remain at home. She 
was not informed of their wishes, consequently it was 
the first thing packed ; for to her it was of the highest 
importance. In a leisure time at the seminary she 
sketched the buildings and grounds, which so pleased 
Mr. Fry that lie desired to purchase the picture, and 
engaged the young artist to impart to one of her 
tea/' hers a knowledge of this beautiful art. 



^10 WOMEN OF THE CENTUEl. 

This lady married Rev. C. W. Mellen, whose taste 
and culture enabled him to take a lively interest in her 
efforts at oil-painting. She was instructed by the late 
Fitz-Henry Lane of Gloucester, Mass. ; and, as he was 
unquestionably one of the best marine painters in the 
country, it is no wonder that in after years the pupil 
received a large meed of praise for her originals and 
copies. Her copy of Lane's " On the Lee Shore " has 
elicited the warm encomiums of the press. One editor 
remarked, " An old ' sea dog,' in looking at it yesterday » 
exclaimed, ' Them anchors yer only hope 1 ' " and added, 
" Mrs. Mellen is so faithful in the copies of her master, 
that even an expert might take them for originals. 
Indeed, an anecdote is related of her, which will exem- 
plify her power in this direction. She had just com- 
pleted a copy of one of Mr. Lane's pictures when he 
called at her residence to see it. The copy and the 
original were brought down from the studio together, 
and the master, much to the amusement of those pres- 
ent, was unable to tell which was his own, and which 
was the pupil's." 

Mrs. Mellen now resides in Taunton, Mass., and is. 
still actively engaged in her studio with good success. 

May Alcott should not be forgotten among artists, 
since her sketches have so enlivened the pages of her 
sister's stories. Born in Concord, Mass., of patriotic 
and philosophic stock, and one of the originals of 
•' Little Women," she has been dihgent at home and 
abroad, and will take high place among those whose 
etchings speak to the eye and the heart, and finely illus- 
trate life and sentiment, the grave and the gay. 

Elizabeth K. De Nobmandie, the third of nine 
children, was born in Bucks County, Penn. Her father 
was one who deserved the title of " beloved physician.' 



WOMEN ARTISTS. 311 

On the paternal side she has Huguenot blood in her 
veins, and Quaker on that of her mother, who was 
Sarah B. Yardley. Owing to ill health the father ceased 
the practice of his profession, and moved to the West. 
The mother was a rare spirit, a womaa worthy of her 
three clergymen sons, and her artist daughter. " She 
was eier the bright spirit of the household, ever speak- 
ing the fitting word, ever counselling her children with 
wisdom and love. Through changes of place and for- 
tune, through loss and disappointment, ev er her bright 
spirit looked up and onward. Amid many other duties 
that were conscientiously discharged, she daily taught 
her young family, saying she did not think it right to 
send young children to school until they could read, 
write, and understand something of arithmetic and 
geography. So then and always, while her children 
were at home, were they drawn around her through the 
day and by lamplight, while she superintended their 
studies as only an intelligent, judicious mother can." 
At her mother's death Miss De Normandie continued 
to keep the little store in which the writer of this vol- 
ume first saw her, at Yellow Springs, O., to which place 
her parents removed for the education of their sons 
under Horace Mann, and where Miss De Normandie 
was then studying the modern languages, when Antioch 
College was presided over by the genial Dr. Hosmer. 
She painted admirably in oils for years. In 1874 she 
crossed the Atlantic and made the tour of Europe 
alone. Far below the average stature of woman, yet 
Her courage and strength were sufficient for all her need ; 
and she spent about sixteen months visiting nearly 
every country of Europe, and in her own experience 
proved that "a lady can travel alone and on limited 
means through every interesting spot of Europe, gain- 



312 WOMEN OP THE OBNTUBY. 

Lag information and experience that may henceforth 
enrich her life." She is "quite certain that many 
ladies, if they are willing to be economical, can save 
from unnecessary expenses of dress and table and 
amusement, in a few years, enough to make such a 
tour." Miss De Normandie spent several months in 
the Louvre, painting, and since her return has contrib- 
uted articles concerning her journey to a religious jour- 
nal, showing that the American woman artist or the 
literary woman can easily and profitably see Europe if 
she will. 

Miss Emily Saetain. " This talented lady is a native 
of Philadelphia, where she still resides ; but her repu- 
tation was long since spread wide over the country 
as an eminent engraver on steel, to which difficult art 
she has added that of painter in oil colors of figure 
subjects. 

" The mechanical skill to be acquired before successful 
work is produced in mezzotinto engraving is much less 
than in the Une manner, or even in the style called 
stippling ; but it demands much more artistic ability, 
and that self-reliance, the result of a mastery in the art 
of drawing from the model, which enables the engraver 
to proceed in a painter-like manner, with free and con- 
fident intelligence of touch. Hence, the best education 
is first to learn to paint in oils, which necessarily in- 
cludes a knowledge and practice of drawing. 

" Such was the course of study pursued by Miss Sar- 
tain, the pioneer among American women in the art of 
engraving on steel ; and this doubtless contributed, not 
only to the striking excellence of her productions, but 
also to the facility and rapidity which are marked char- 
acteristics of her execution. She has been an earnest and 
laborious student in the Art School of the Pennsylvania 



WOMEN ARTISTS. 313 

Academy of the Fine Arts at Philadelphia from the 
time that Mr. Christian Schussele received the appoint- 
ment of professor in that institution ; an instructor 
unequalled in his faculty of imparting knowledge of an 
art of which he is one of the brightest ornaments. 
Under the intelligent and judicious guidance of the 
professor, she labored diligently in drawing from thc- 
casts of antique statuary, of which the academy pro- 
vides the student with such an ample collection, and 
also in painting in oil colors from the living models 
furnished in the same school. The lectures on artistic 
anatomy, which form part of the art course of instruc- 
tion, had also its share in the advancement of the pupil. 
With this thorough groundwork she was well prepared 
to profit by the instruction and many years' experience 
of her father, the veteran artist, John Sartain, in the 
art of engraving. 

" Besides the advantages enumerated, possessed by 
Miss Sartain in common with the rest of the pupils, male 
and female, in the Pennsylvania Academy, must not 
be forgotten the important one of more than a year's 
observation of the finest examples of art in Europe. 
Making several visits to the Old World, travelling 
through Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, 
and Great Britain, and studying on the way, with 
interest and care, the many collections of pictures, from 
Naples in the extreme south to Edinburgh in the north, 
could not but result in greatly maturing the judgment, 
and elevating the taste and aspirations, of one so ob- 
servant, and so eager after improvement, and ever 
ready to transmute opportunity into the gold of reali- 
zation. She appears to be endowed with a remarkable 
natural aptitude; for the usual school training, which 
preceded her art studies, was gone through with the 



314 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

same quiet determination, and rapid as well as solid 
achievement, that has distinguished her in after pur- 
suits. The testimony borne by all her instructors — 
French, German, Italian — is of her calm persistency 
and swift mastery of whatever she applied herself to. 
Prof. Bishop is extravagant in his praises of the way 
in which she overcame the diificulties of musical 
science under his instruction ; not of the practice — she 
had no time for that — but of the principles. We may 
add, that her acquirements in the regions of literature 
are at least equal to her art knowledge and experience, 
and are not confined to the boundaries of her native 
language. 

*' In addition to numerous portraits. Miss Sartaiu haa 
engraved several compositions of larger size for framing 
as parlor-wall decorations, well-known pictures after 
Richter, Jalabert, Von Hoslt, and others. But at last 
her love of color induced her to turn her attention to 
oil-painting as an end instead of a means, and she 
became the private pupil of Prof. Schussele on the 
temporary closing of the Pennsylvania Academy during 
the building of its present superb edifice. On leaving 
Prof. Schussele to pursue her studies in Europe, 
she spent a winter in Parma, Italy, a city rich in the 
productions of Correggio, and thence went to Paris, 
where, during four years, she matured her knowledge 
and technical skill in the atelier of the eminent artist, 
Monsieur Evariste Luminals, at the same time profiting 
by the advantages afforded in the rich galleries of the 
Louvre, and the constantly recurring exhibitions of the 
finest works of modern art in that centre of European 
civihzation. 

"In 1875 two of Miss Sartain's paintings, a. genre pic- 
<iure and a life-size portrait, had the honor of being 



WOMEN ARTISTS. 315 

accepted at the Paris Salon, where the ordeal is so 
severe that more than one-half the artistic productions 
offered are rejected. In the Internatioual Exhibition 
of this centennial year, in her native city, Miss Sartain 
received the distinction of a medal of honor in the first 
group selected as prominent for artistic excellence 
among the representative artists of the nation. At 
present she is hard at work in her Philadelphia studio 
at both of her professions, winning new laurels, and 
laying the foundation of a reputation which will be 
cited by posterity." 

Mrs. WoRMLY, the wife of Dr. Wormly of Colum- 
bus, O., is also a noted engraver on steel. She 
illustrated a work written by her husband, who is a 
chemist, having first made the drawings, and s«nt them 
to some eastern city to be engraved. " A difficulty 
arose: no engraver could be found to undertake the 
microscopic work required. It was the opinion of 
engravers who were consulted, that only the artist who 
drew the pictures could successfully engrave them. 
Thus compelled to finish the work, the wife of Dr. 
Wormly learned the art of engraving, engraved the 
plates, and enjoys the honor of having contributed so 
largely to the beauty and completeness of a celebrated 
scientific treatise." 

Women as wood-carvers have exhibited great artis- 
tic ability, and the edifice known as the " Lake Geneva 
Seminary" in Wisconsin was designed by a woman. 
Its architect was Harriet E. Warner, whose mother 
is the principal. She has " demonstrated that a woman 
can design a large building that shall combine, to a rare 
degree, beauty and fitness. Without having given 
any previous attention to architecture, she has achieved 
this success. Her artistic gifts and training of courfte 



816 WOMEN OF THE CBNTUBY. 

paved the way ; for this architect is an artist by pro- 
fession, and a credit to her young State. In the 
Woman's Department at Philadelphia are two lovely 
specimens of her work. The shrine of carved ebony 
and silver, contributed by the women of Wisconsin, 
has two gem pictures in panels, bits of the lake and 
ihore in the delicate blue and green of their spring 
attire. These glimpses of the lake, in its sunny, spring- 
time mood, were caught by Miss Warner, who studies 
the scenery with as much devotion as a lover studies 
the changing expressions of his lady's face. Her artis- 
tic talent she seems to have inherited from her mother, 
a woman of rare cultivation." 

Edmonia Lewis is entitled to be mentioned with the 
women artists of our first century. Let "The Christian 
Register " tell her story. 

"All who were present at Tremout Temple on the 
Monday evening of the presentation to Rev. Mr. Grimes 
of the marble group of ' Forever Free,' executed by 
Miss Edmonia Lewis, must have been deeply interested. 
No one, not born subject to the ' Cotton King,' could 
look upon this piece of sculpture without profound 
emotion. The noble figure of the man, his very muscles 
seeming to swell with gratitude ; the expression of the 
right now to protect, with which he throws his arm 
around his kneeling wife ; the ' Praise de Lord ' hover- 
ing on their lips ; the broken chain, — all so instinct 
with life, telling in the very poetry of stone the story 
of the last ten years. And when it is remembered who 
created this group, an added interest is given to it. 
Who threw so much expression into those figures ? 
What well-known sculptor arranged with such artistic 
grace those speaking forms ? Will any one believe it 
vas the small hand of a girl that wrought the marble 



WOMEN ARTISTS. 317 

and kindled the light within it ? — a girl of dusky hue, 
mixed Indian and African, who not more than eight 
years ago sat down on the steps of the City Hall to eat 
the dry crackers with which alone her empty purse 
allowed her to satisfy her hunger ; but as she sat and 
thought of her dead brother, of her homeless state, 
something caught her eye, the hunger of the stomach 
ceased, but the hunger of the soul began. That quiel 
statue of the good old Franklin had touched the electric 
spark, and kindled the latent genius which was en- 
shrined within her, as her own group was in the marble, 
till her chisel brought it out. For weeks she haunted 
that spot and the State House, where she could see 
Washington and Webster. She asked questions, and 
found that such things were first made in clay. She 
got a lump of hard mud, shaped her some sticks, and, 
her heart divided between art and the terrible struggle 
for freedom, which had just received the seal of Col. 
Shaw's blood, she wrought out, from photographs and 
her own ideal, an admirable bust of him. This made 
^he name of Edmonia Lewis known in Boston. The 
unknown waif on the steps of City Hall had, in a few 
short months, become an object of interest to a large 
circle of those most anxious about the great problem of 
the development of the colored race in their new 
position. 

" We next hear of Edmonia in Rome, where her per- 
severance, industry, genius, and naivetS made her warm 
friends. Miss Charlotte Cushman and Miss Hosmer 
took great interest in her. Her studio was visited by 
aU strangers, who looked upon the creations of this 
untaught maiden a marvellous. She modelled there 
' The Freedwoman on First Hearing of her Liberty,' of 
which it is said, ' It tells with much eloquence a painful 



318 WOMEN OF THE GENTUBT. 

story.* No one can deny that she has distinguished 
\ier8elf in sculpture ; not, perhaps, in the highest grade, 
but in a most natural and pleasing form. Six months 
ago the waif returned to her own country, to sit once 
again on the steps of the City Hall, just to recall the 
' then,' and contrast it with the ' now.' ' Then,' hungry, 
heart-weary, no plan for the future. ' Now,' the hunger 
of the soul satisfied ; freedom to do, to achieve, won by 
her own hand ; friends gained ; the world to admire. 
She brought with her to this country a bust of ' our ' 
poet, said to be one of the best ever taken. It has been 
proposed by some of Longfellow's friends to have it put 
in marble, for Harvard. It would be a beautiful thought 
that the author of ' Hiawatha ' should be embalmed 11 
stone by a descendant from Minnehaha. And certainly 
nothing can be more appropriate than the presentation 
to Rev. Mr. Grimes, the untiring friend of his race, the 
indomitable worker, the earnest preacher, of this rare 
work, * Forever Free,' uniting grace and sentiment, the 
offspring of an enthusiastic soul, who consecrates her 
genius to truth and beauty." 

Anna Whitney of Massachusetts has won an en- 
viable place among women artists. Her native State 
has lately ordered of her a statue of Samuel Adams for 
the national collection at Washington, of which " The 
Boston Journal" thus speaks : — 

" The statue of Samuel Adams by Miss Annie Whit- 
ney has just been received from Italy, and is now on 
exhibition in the vestibule of the Boston Athenaeum, 
preliminary to its removal to Washington, it having 
been accepted by the Commission. It is a work which 
cannot fail to command almost un versal admiration. 
The pose of the figure is simple, dignified, and manly 
He stands with folded arms, a figure full of power. The 



WOMEN AKTISTS. 319 

head and face are fine, expressive of the republican 
virtues which were the prominent traits of the char- 
acter of Samuel Adams. The entire impression of the 
■statue strongly reminds one of what John Adams said 
of him, ' that upon great occasions, when his deeper 
feelings were excited, he erected himself, or rather 
nature seemed to erect him, without the smallest symp- 
tom of affectation, into an upright dignity of figure and 
gesture which made a strong impression on spectators.' 

" It borrows nothing from drapery : there is neither 
cloak nor mantle, only the small-clothes, the long 
waistcoat, and the straight-breasted, hood-skirted coat 
which was the simple dress of the time. The hair is 
brushed back from the forehead, and tied in a queu 
behind. The first impression one gets of the statue is 
its grand simplicity, dignity, and power. 

" It is mounted upon a plain pedestal, some changes 
in which are, however, yet to be made. It is inscribed 
on one side, 'Night is approaching. An immediate 
answer is expected. Both regiments or none. March 
6, 1770 ; ' and on the other, ' Presented by Massachu- 
setts, 1876 ; ' while it bears on the front in raised letters 
the single name, ' Samuel Adams.' 

" As a whole, it is a worthy memorial of one of the 
noblest of Massachusetts' patriots, and one of the wisest 
of the friends of the Republic." 

Other artists there are, some of whom are here briefl.y 
mentioned, though they deserve much more : Sarah 
E. FuiiLBB, who is a fine engraver on wood also, and 
received a medal from the Vienna Exposition for hei 
excellent work ; Alice Donlevy, who has prepared 
an excellent elementary work on " Illumination," and is 
custodian of the Ladies' Art Association of New York, 
ever active and successful in many departments of art j 



320 WOMEN OF TiLL CBNTUBT. 

VrNNiB Ream, who has been greatly blamed as well as 
highly praised as a sculptor, and doubtless deserves less 
censure for failures, and more praise for the really good 
work the little woman has done and is still doing ; 
Margahitta Wllletts Habrison, whose crayon por- 
traits are exceedingly fine, and who is a successful 
teacher of drawing in the public schools of Jersey City , 
Joanna Qtjiner, who never modelled till after she was 
forty, and then made excellent busts of Robert Ran- 
toul, Frothingham the artist, and others, which were 
commended in " The North American Review." A 
biographical sketch of her by the writer of this volume 
may be found published in the " Historical Collections " 
of the Essex Institute (vol. xii., part 1, January, 1874). 
She was a native of Beverly, Mass., born Aug. 27, 
1796 ; died in 1869, in Lynn, Mass. She was a woman 
worthy of this century ; a friend to temperance, holding 
official position in the Order of Good Templars, and 
ever ready for any benevolent work. Miss A. R. 
Sawyer of Boston is a crayon artist of more than 
ordinary ability. Among her works which have become 
famous are " The Empty Sleeve," " The Better Land," 
and " Only a Little Brook." Sarah Ransom and 
Sarah F. Ames are artists of ability, worthy of far 
more than this brief mention. But there really is space 
only for one more name, and that a familiar one, the 
details of whose career have been often published, and 
nay be found in " Eminent Women of the Age," and 
also in " Women Artists." That woman's name is 
Harriet Hosmer, whose fame will never die from her 
native land, while her merry pranks in Watertown, 
Mass., her early home, are also remembered as an ear- 
nest of the brave spirit which struggled for an educa- 
tion in anatomy needful for a sculptor. She has 



WOMEN ABTIST8. 321 

Biuce made good use of all her knowledge. Gibson's 
pupi] has sent forth from her studio in Rome statues 
that command universal admiration, and have made her 
name a household word. Such petrified inspirations 
as " Beatrice " and " Zenobia " are not easily forgotten. 
She is still m Rome, bravely working out her destiny as 
9 sculptor and a woman. It was the writer's privilege 
to meet her at the Rockland House in 1868, on Nan 
tasket Beach. She had that morning listened to my 
sermon from the words, " I shall be satisfied when I 
awake in Thy likeness ; " in which, all unconscious 
of her presence, I had illustrated my theme by a ref- 
erence to the struggles of artists and students, and 
the satisfaction of attainment after toil. A few 
days after I received a note from her, in which she 
wrote words of cheer for woman. Referring to the 
ordination of Rev. William Garrison Haskell at Mar- 
blehead, Mass., in which Rev. Olympia Brown and 
myself were to take part, she said, " On Monday I saw 
a notice of the ceremony which was to take place yes- 
terday, and I only wished that circumstances had 
favored my being present ; and, while reading, I could 
not but think what a country mine is for women I 
Here every woman has a chance, if she is bold enough 
to avail herself of it ; and I am proud of every woman 
who is bold enough. I honor every woman who has 
strength enough to step out of the beaten path when 
she feels that her walk lies in another ; strength enough 
to stand up to be laughed at, if necessary. That is a 
bitter pill we must all swallow in the beginning ; but 
I regard these pills as tonics quite essential to one's 
mental salvation. That invigorator was administered 
to me very plentifully by some of my brother artists on 
my arrival in Rome : but when the learned doctors' 



322 WOMEN OF TiliS CENTURY. 

changed their treatment, and declared that I did not do 
my own work, I felt that I must have made some 
progress in my art ; otherwise they would not have 
been so ready to attribute that work to one of their 
own sex. You have the advantage there ; for no one 
can say you do not preach your own sermons. But in 
a few more years it will not be thought strange that 
women should be preachers and sculptors, and every 
one who comes after us will have to bear fewer and 
fewer blows. Therefore I say, I honor all those who 
step boldly forward, and, in spite of ridicule and criti- 
cism, pave a broader way for the women of the next 
generation." 

The work which Miss Hosmer has accomplished is 
simply marvellous. Her " Puck," " Sleeping Fawn," 
" Waking Fawn," and monuments to Benton and oth- 
ers, especially her bronze gates for Earl Brownlow, will 
long keep her memory green. Rev. R. B. Thurston 
writes thus : " Her studio in the Via Margutta is said 
to be itself a work of art, and the most beautiful in 
Rome, if not in Italy. The entrance is made attractive 
with flowers and birds. In the centre of the first 
room stands ' The Fountain of Siren.' Each room of the 
series contains some work of art, hanging baskets, and 
floral decorations. Her own apartment, in which she 
herself works, displays her early tastes in flowers and 
broken relics of art, with collections of minerals, draw- 
ings, and rare books. A lady writes for the use of this 
sketcl' : ' She superintends the work herself, and will 
wield the chisel more adroitly than any practised work- 
man. In this she has the advantage ; for many artists 
can only design, and ignore the practical working 
of their ideas, which, left to a mechanical taste, often 
leave us an inexpressible dissatisfaction, while admiring 



WOMEN ARTISTS. 323 

the conception. . . . Miss Hosmer's genius is not lim- 
ited to sculpture. There are those who believe, that, 
had she chosen the pursuit of letters, she would have 
excelled as much in literature as she does in art, — that 
she would have wielded the pen with as much skill and 
power as she does the chisel of the statuary. Evidences 
of this are found in her correspondence. She has pub- 
lished a beautiful poem, dedicated to Lady Maria Alford 
of England, and a well- written article in * The Atlantic 
Monthly ' on the ' Process of Sculpture,' perspicuous 
and philosophical in its treatment of the subject. In it 
she defends women artists against the impeachments of 
their jealous brothers." ^ 

The chapter ends, but could not give the long list 
of those women who have manifested ability in art. 
The adoption of drawing as a public-school study wiU 
give us yet more artists from among the bright girls 
of the second century, to emulate the women of '.he 
first. 

May Alcott, mentioned above, married M. Neriker, 
and died abroad, leaving an infant child. 

Margaret Foley is more known by her wonderful statue 
of " Jeremiah," and later works of the sculptor's art in 
Italy, where she spent many years. She was spending 
the summer in the Tyrol with her friends, the daughters 
of William and Mary Howitt, and died suddenly there. 

Within a short time a school has been established in 
New York, for teaching women the art of designing for 
carpet-weaving. Mrs. Florence E. Cory is the Principal, 
and Miss Florence E, Densmore, daughter of Dr. Anna 
D. French, is one of the instructors. The school 5s in 
successful operation. 

The " Phrenological Journal " says : " Mbs. Floe- 
BNCB E. Cory, of New York, is credited with receiving 

1 Eminent Women of the Age. 



324 WOMEN 01' THE OENTUEJf. 

l/^,oOO a year for designs for carpets. She very aptly 
says that there is a wide field in this direction for th* 
employment of woman's taste and skiU. She makfti «*• 
aigns for various houses in New York and Philad'^.^nia, 
and is paid according to their va]u*»," 




CHAPTER XL 



WOMEN LECTURERS. 



Mary A. Livermore — Anna E. Dickinson — Abby Kelley Foster — 
Elizabeth K. Churchill — Frances E. W. Harper — Sojourner Truth 
— Mary F. Eastman, &c. 

" So may she brighten all the world, so move the world's great heart, 
And bear in every generous thought and every deed her part. 
If ye would teach her soul aright, clip not its pinions strong, 
But give them to God's open sky, in frequent flight and long." 

" Woman," by Maky M. Chase. 

" So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." — 
James ii. 12. 



MARY A. LIVERMORli; stands at the head of the 
women lecturers of the world. In truth, there 
are many of both sexes in our land who would not 
hesitate an instant to declare that no man can hold an 
audience as she can, and startle one with the combina- 
tion of characteristics as a speaker, that have been seen 
in few speakers of any land before. The weight of 



326 WOMEN OF THE CENTCTBY. 

her logic, the storehouse of facts displaying a marvel- 
lous memory, the sparkle of her humor, the power of her 
pathos, the magic of her tones, her fearlessness, her en- 
durance, her magnetic influence, all combine to make 
her, as a lecturer and woman, a marvel of the age. 
This is the language of sober conviction, not of person 
al preference. It is not eulogy nor panegyric run wild, 
but solemn truth ; and a sense of devout thanksgiving 
for such a champion of truth dwells in many hearts, 
while the prayer goes up from East and West, from 
North and South, wherever true, cultured Christian 
women dwell, " God bless and keep long in the lec- 
ture-field that advocate of right thinking and pure liv- 
ing, — Mary Ashton Livermore." She was born in Bos- 
ton, Dec. 19, 1821 ; was early a teacher, having been 
a pupil also in the Charlestown Female Seminary; 
taught afterwards as a governess at the South, then in 
a school at Duxbury, where she first met Rev. Daniel 
P. Livermore, her husband, and through his instruc- 
tions became a partaker in liberal religious views,' and 
afterward rendered efficient aid to the Universalist de- 
nomination, and to Christians generally, as associate 
editor of his paper, " The New Covenant." " The La- 
dies' Repository " for January, 1868, contains a biograph- 
ical sketch of this remarkable woman of the first cen- 
tury, written by Rev. J . S. Dennis, who, after speaking 
of her faithful service in the war as an angel of mercy 
in camp and hospital, adds, " Through her skill and 
influence, mainly, ten Sanitary Fairs were inaugurated, 
from which alone nearly half a milhon dollars were 
cleared." There is a sketch of her work in Brackett's 
" Women of the Civil War ; " but a full statement of her 
industry and genius and influence has never yet been 
made. In the " Watchman and Reflector ' of Boston 




MKS. xMAilY A. LIVEKMORE. 



WOMEN LECTURERS. 329 

appeared a sketch by Virginia F. Townsend (herself a 
writer of great ability), which, as a graphic picture of 
the great lecturer and her pleasant home surround- 
ings, has been warmly welcomed. It is entitled, — 

A NIGHT AT THE HOME OF MARY A. LIVERMORE. 

" ' Melrose 1 ' shouted the conductor. I was out on 
the platform in a moment, with the rest of the human 
packages staring curiously up and down the quaint old 
town, which strikes one at first sight as comfortably 
taking its ease and the world at large in a peaceful, Rip- 
Vau- Winkle sort of atmosphere. Melrose, however, is 
only seven miles from Boston, and, despite the air of 
serene respectability with which it confronts a stranger, 
must come in for its share in the seasoning of Attic 
salt, and no doubt, get to the heart of it, is well tinc- 
tured with heresies and radicalism. It was the late 
afternoon of one of those June days Lowell sings 
about so felicitously, when I made my way through the 
shadows of the pleasant, dreamy old street to the home 
across whose threshold I was now to pass for the first 
time. 

" A soft, poetic sunshine was on leaves and flowers : 
there were hushes of winds among locusts and maples, 
and the sweet twitter of robins through the stillness, 
when I found myself at the house where I was to 
pass the night. A quiet, unpretending New England 
home stood before me, finished up in brown, even to 
the blinds, a veranda across the front, and June roses 
in a very glee and riot of blossoming, — the extreme 
simplicity of the whole in fine harmony with the old 
town and the shadowy street, even though the presid- 
ing divinity here was the strong, earnest, intent soul of 
Mary A. Livermore. I may as well say at this point 



S30 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

that, measured by hours and interviews, we were al 
most strangers to each other. A brief meeting or two, 
a letter sent me when the heart of the writer was at 
white heat with the work and the glory of the Chicago 
Sanitary Fair, comprised our personal acquaintance ; yet, 
despite this fact, I was certain that hostess and guest 
would meet to-night not as strangers do. If one does 
not feel at home with the first glance at the house, one 
is certain to the moment he is across the threshold. 

" The parlor which received me was a place to dream 
in for a day, with pictures and engravings, and pretty 
brackets that gave color and grace and a certain artis- 
tic effect to the whole room, while that subtle charm 
of a real home atmosphere brooded over all. I had ex- 
pected to find in Mrs. Livermore a good housekeeper. 
Indeed, come to think of it, I never knew a literary 
woman, in the highest sense of the word, who did not 
prove herself in her own home a capable domestic 
' manager ; ' and, having been in more than one of 
these homes, I am, despite the traditional blue stock- 
ing, entitled to speak ex cathedrd on this matter. My 
own room, too, when I went into it, proved the very 
' pink essence ' of order and comfort, with pictures and 
brackets again, and delicate little artistic touches 
everywhere. I sat down by the window, too content 
for any thing but watching the sunshine in the cherry 
and locust trees outside, and waited, but not long. 
There was a rap at the door, — no soft, appealing flutter 
of fingers, but prompt, strong, decisive ; and, getting 
up, I confronted Mrs. Livermore. She has a tall, dig- 
nified, matronly presence, an earnest, intent, attractive 
face, with a smile that comes suddenly and breaks up 
the gravity with a sweet archness, with a voice full of 
a clear, ringing helpfulness and decision : and the more 



WOMEN LECTURERS. 331 

you see of her the more you grow into a sense of her 
reserve force and her wonderful magnetic power, and 
comprehend what a shrewd physician meant when he 
said, ' The Lord made you up, Mrs. Livermore, to do a 
big job of work in this world.' ' I should have come 
to you at once,' she said, with her cordial warmth of 
speech and manner ; ' but my husband's congregation 
at Hingham gave us a reception yesterday, and this 
morning I was obliged to take the six-o'clock train into 
Boston, to see to the getting out of the paper ; so, 
when I learned you were coming, I primed myself 
with a couple of hours' sleep.' We took our supper 
alone together that night. A silver goblet stood at 
my plate ; and when I had taken my first draught Mrs. 
Livermore remarked, ' That goblet was given me by 
the soldiers at the Chicago Sanitary F^ir.' Perhaps I 
was unusually thirsty that night : at any rate, it seemed 
to me, as I drained the goblet, that no water had ever 
tasted so sweet. The silver was simple enough, with 
its chasing and Latin inscriptions : but it spoke to me 
of weary journeys through days and nights in ' mud- 
spankers,' over the wide, lonely plains of the North- 
west ; of burdens under which a strong man might 
well have faltered, together with calm, unflinching 
courage ; of wounded men in dreary hospitals, starting 
at the sound of the clear, helpful voice, and glancing 
up with tearful joy as that woman's shadow fell into 
their pain and loneliness. 

" Before we had finished our supper, Mr. Livermore 
entered, — a fine-looking, rather portly gentleman, who 
evidently has a relish for a joke, and a profound faith 
in looking on the brightest side of things. He 
reminded me of some joUy English squire, who would 
enjoy riding to cover in the dew and sunshine of an 



332 WOMEN OF THE CENTDBY. 

autumn morning, and spurring on horse and houad to 
the chase with the bravest ; but he is in reality the 
pastor of a Universalist church at Hingham. ' We 
exchange works sometimes,' said his wife, with a 
laugh. ' When there is a high pressure of business on 
me, he obligingly spares me the trouble of writing an 
editorial ; and, in turn, I occasionally preach for him.' 
Despite the appalling fact that his wife is an editor, a 
lecturer, an occasional preacher, and a leader in the 
Woman's Rights movement, nobody seeing them half 
an hour together could doubt that the Hingham pastor 
was a proud and happy husband. 

" After supper we went over the house ; and Mrs. 
Livermore took me into her sanctum, a quiet little 
nook, and as orderly as Sir Walter Scott's library at 
Abbotsford. From the back windows, the idyl of Mrs. 
Livermore's home burst suddenly upon me in the ishape 
of ' Crystal Lake,' a delicious little sheet of water on 
whose shores her house stands. It was just at sunset, 
and the winds were out, and there was a very dazzle 
of silver waves along the banks, as I first caught sight 
of the little lake between its low-lying shores. Here, 
too, lay a dainty little row-boat, just fitted for the fairy 
stream it was to navigate. 

" But the cream of the evening was yet to come. 
At last we were quietly settled down in Mrs. Liver- 
more's own room, for the * talk ' we had been so long 
promising ourselves. It was a talk, which, following no 
law, glanced all over Mrs. Livermore's life. .The stately 
matron was again a child, with Copp's Hill Cemetery 
for her playground, and without a fear of the quiet 
sleepers under her riotous sport. She drew herself 
a wild, impetuous, overflowing ' tomboy ' of a girl, 
brimming with fun and mischief; the strong, native, 



WOMEN LECTURERS. 333 

vital forces in her bringing her forever to grief, yet 
never permanently checked ; the champion always of 
the poor and friendless ; and a strange, underlying 
sadness getting sometimes to the surface through all 
the boisterous mirth and mischief. This woman was 
evidently cut on a grand pattern from the beginning. 
The royal Hebrew's injunction of ' not sparing the rod ' 
was faithfully observed in the training of the eager, 
intense, tumultuous New England girl. She was sent 
supperless to bed ; she was defrauded of that crowning 
treasure and delight of childhood, Saturday afternoon ; 
she was scolded at and urged ; and she cried herself 
sick, or would if any such thing had been possible to 
the fibre that went to the making of the stout, robust 
little figure, and wished she was dead ; and then broke 
the cords which held her a prisoner in the chair, and, 
mounting that, made it serve for a pulpit, and preached 
to the walls, warning sinners to ' flee from the wrath 
to come,' while father and mother would stand listen- 
ing outside in amused bewilderment at the child's 
passionate eloquence. Sometimes, too, the old Baptist 
deacon would look mournfully at his daughter, and say, 
'If you had only been a boy, Mary, what a preacher 
in that case you would have made 1 I would certainly 
have educated you for the ministry, and what a world 
of good you might have done I ' But it never so much 
as entered the Boston deacon's heart that this strange, 
impulsive, fiery little soul, whose sex he so keenly 
deplored, had her own work to do in the world, and 
would yet hold vast masses breathless under the power 
of her logic, the magic charm of her eloquence. But 
the years went on, and the Boston deacon's daughter 
grew into girlhood and womanhood, with her marvel- 
lous energy, with her keen, alert mind, with her 



334 WOMEN or THE CENTUHY 

hungry greed of knowledge, with her swift scorn of 
sophistries, but with the warm, generous heart, a little 
steadied with the gathering years, as swift and helpful 
now as in those old days when it danced in Copp'a 
burying-ground, and was the champion of all the poor, 
neglected children. 

" ' When we were married,' said Mrs. Livermore, 
with that humor whose current plays and sparkles 
through all the earnestness of her talk, ' our capital 
consisted of books. I did all my own work. I cut 
and made my husband's coats and pants. There is no 
kind of housework with which I am not familiar. I 
defy anybody to rival me in that line. My drawers, 
my closets, my whole house, are always free for inspec- 
tion.' 

" It is marvellous, when you come to think of it, the 
amount of mental and physical strain which this 
woman manages to undergo. There is the constant 
wear and tear of nerve and brain. For three weeks at 
a time, during the lecture season, she assures me she 
has not slept on a bed, except such poor substitutes of 
one as lounges on cars and steamboats afford. Even 
during the summer her engagements are so numerous, 
that the evening I passed with her was the solitary one 
she could command for the ensuing month. She was 
to speak in a few days in Clinton, N.Y., and to lecture 
before the graduating class of the divinity school in 
Canton ; this being the first time in the history of 
American institutions that such an honor has been 
awarded to a woman. Add to this her constant read- 
ing, her duties as chief editress of the * Woman's Jour- 
nal,' the letters that must be answered, the ocean of 
manuscripts that must be waded through. One cannot 
help sympathizing with the sentiment of the distich. 



WOMEN LECTURERS. 335 

which she quoted to me as a sample of the avalanche 
of rhyme which poured down on ' The Woman's Jour- 
nai : ' — 

* Art thou not tired, my dear M. A. L., 
Working forever, so hard and so ytpII ? ' 

* There were actually four pages in this key,' she said. 
Of course no woman could bear all this physical and 
mental strain without the foundation of an admirable 
physique. With few exceptions she has always 
enjoyed splendid health. The stamina of her Puritan 
grandmother seems to have been bequeathed unweak- 
ened to Mary A. Livermore. Then there are the con- 
stant claims on her time and charity. As an instance 
in point, one year she found homes for thirty- three 
children worse than orphans. 

" ' I never in my Ufe,' she said, ' turned anybody 
away who came to me for help. I never wilfully 
wronged a human being.' How few of us could, in our 
inmost souls, say these words 1 

" I cannot forbear here, even at the risk of making 
this article too long, quoting an adventure which Mrs. 
Livermore related to me, as occurring on the Missouri 
during her last lecturing-tour, while the Missouri was 
at flood-tide. A sudden rise of the river had rendered 
it impossible for steamboats to cross during the day. 
Mrs. Livermore was engaged to lecture that night in a 
town on the opposite shore. After dark a crowded 
steamer undertook the passage. A terrible gale was 
blowing at this time, and the steamer rocked on the 
river, while every timber creaked and shivered in the 
awful wind. The smokestacks were soon blown 
down. As is frequently the case on Western rivers, 
the steamer was in charge of a rough, drunken crew, 



336 WOMEN OF THE GENTUBY. 

and now in a panic they rushed among the passen- 
gers, shouting, ' Boat's afire ! She will go like tinder in 
fifteen minutes.' Of course a terrible scene ensued. 
In the gale and in the darkness, with the river at 
flood-tide, the cry of the crew was only too true, — 
the steamer was actually on fire. The men were 
white with fear ; the women shrieked and fainted, the 
children sobbed. In the midst of all this clamor one 
woman stood quite calm. ' I was unconscious,' said 
Mrs. Livermore, ' of a thrill of fear. I had a solemn 
conviction that I should not be drowned.' She quietly 
disengaged herself from her heaviest wrappings, in case 
the worst should come. A remark which she had 
heard a little while before came back in that moment 
of peril. ' Whoever falls into the Missouri will not 
only be drowned, but buried.' She looked at the dark, 
swollen mass of waters, and resolved that, God helping 
her, if she found herself in the midst, even then she 
would not despair, she would not lose her presence of 
mind, but hold herself up as best she could, and not go 
down to be buried in the mud of the Missouri. 

" But that wonderful courage was not put to the last 
test: the fire was extinguished, the steamer outrode 
the gale, and, when it reached the shore, the men gath- 
ered with loud praises about the woman who had 
carried herself so bravely through the peril. 

" But for her, she went straight to the hall, and lec- 
tured to a crowd that evening. That night, however, 
at the hotel, Mrs. Livermore sprang up seven times 
from her sleep into the middle of her chamber, crying 
out with terror that the boat was on fire. 

*' Amid our talk there, shine two sentences of my 
hostess which have come back to me so often, and 
which seem two such clear crystals of truth, that I 



WOMEN LECTURERS. 337 

cannot choose but write them here. One was, ' A 
divine discontent must pursue all human lives ; ' and 
the other, ' Life is lonely to every soul.' 

"But the pleasantest hours have an end ; and we 
were on the flood-tide of our talk, and Mrs. Livermore 
wore the look of an inspired sibyl, and the hours were 
wearing towards midnight, when the Hingham pastor, 
with his pleasant face and his air of the EngUsh squire, 
broke in upon us, saying quietly that to-morrow would 
demand too heavy a toll for the night's lost sleep, and 
he must send us to bed. I entreated him to furnish us 
with some cordial that would hold us awake for the 
precious hours of that one night ; but it was evident 
that his pharmacy yielded no such inspiring draught, 
and his wife — I must tell the honest truth — seemed 
disposed to ' obey ' him with as much meekness 
and alacrity as though she regarded that obnoxious 
verb a binding part of the marriage covenant, as 
though she had never stood upon a platform, or 
preached from a pulpit, or gone down bravely into 
the hospitals and bound the quivering limbs of poor, 
wounded soldiers, or held a cooling draught to their 
fevered lips, nay, even as though the woman whom 
Boston long ago gave to Chicago, and whom Chicago, 
after the grand work of the Sanitary Fair was accom- 
plished, gave back in the prime of her womanhood and 
the ripeness of her intellect to Boston, had never 
waved the banner and raised the war-cry of ' The 
Woman's Journal.* " 

Of Mrs. Livermore mention is also made in other 
chapters. 

AiTNA E. Dickinson comes next to Mrs. Livermore 
as a lecturer. There are some who consider her the 
' leading lady." She is a powerful, magnetic speaker. 



338 WOMEN OF THE CEJSfTUBY. 

A sketch of her by Mrs. Stanton, in the *' Eminent 
Women of the Age," will afford a better opportunity 
to judge of her efforts and success than this chapter 
can allow. Space must be found for this tribute, by 
Mrs. Stanton, to her nobleness of soul and life : " While 
80 many truly great women, of other times and coun- 
tries, have marred their fair names, and thrown suspi- 
cion on their sex by vices and follies, this noble girl, 
through all temptations and discouragements, has main- 
tained a purity, dignity, and moral probity of charac- 
ter, that reflect honor on herself and glory on her 
whole sex." 

She was born iu Philadelphia, Oct. 28, 1842. Both 
parents were Quakers, of refinement and cultivation, 
earnest in their advocacy of freedom, and rigid adhe- 
rents to the Orthodox Friends. They sought to train 
Anna aright, and to curb her indomitable will, — 
through the triumph of which, Mrs. Stanton says, '* we 
boast to-day that the most popular American orator 
is a woman." 

" During all her school-days she read, with the great- 
est avidity, every book that she could obtain. News- 
papers, speeches, tracts, history, biography, poetry, 
novels, and fairy-tales were all alike read and relished. 
For weeks and months together, her average hours for 
sleep were not five in the twenty-four. She would 
often read until one o'clock in the morning, and then 
seize her school-books and learn her lessons for the next 
day. She did not study her lessons ; for, with her reten- 
tive memory, what she read once was hers forever. 
The rhymes and compositions she wrote in her young 
days bear evident marks of genius. When fourteen 
years old, she published an article headed ' Slavery,' in 
the ' Liberator.' She early determined that she would 



WOMEN LECTURERS. 339 

be a public speaker. One of her greatest pleasures was 
to get a troop of children about her, and tell them 
stories : if she could fix their attention, and alternately 
convulse them with laughter and melt them to tears, 
she was perfectly happy." 

Time passed on ; and through poverty, and discour- 
agements of various kinds, she struggled up to her 
proud position as a lecturer, with great pecuniary suc- 
cess, and with such a reputation for oratory on the 
political platform, as neither man nor woman had at- 
tained. She saved the States of New Hampshire and 
Connecticut to the Republican party, and did more to 
secure the election of Abraham Lincoln, and thence 
to secure the Emancipation Proclamation, than any 
other speaker in the land. She received ovations 
everywhere. In her native city, where once she had 
scrubbed the sidewalk for twenty-five cents, so as to be 
able to get a ticket to Wendell Phillips's lecture on the 
"Lost Arts," she was invited to speak by leading 
Republicans, and received seven hundred dollars for 
that evening's work. 

Since those days, when her career was formed and 
her reputation established, the "glorious girl " has lec- 
tured on various characteristic and timely themes all 
over our land, with the greatest success. Mrs. Stanton 
says, " There have been many speculations in public 
and private as to the authorship of Anna Dickin- 
son's speeches. ... Those who know Anna's conversa- 
tional power, — who have felt the magnetism of her 
words and manners, and the pulsations of her generous 
heart, who have heard her impromptu replies when 
assailed, — see, at once, that her speeches are the natural 
outgrowth of herself, her own experience and philos- 
ophy, inspired by the eventful times in which she lived. 



340 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

As well ask if Joan of Arc drew her inspiration from 
the warriors of her day. . . . Her heroic courage, in- 
domitable will, brilliant imagination, religious earnest- 
ness, and prophetic forecast gave her an utterance that 
no man's thought could paint or inspire." ^ 

Within a short time Miss Dickinson has chosen the 
stage, in place of the platform, and has appeared in 
several cities as Anne Boleyn, in the play called " The 
Crown of Thorns," written by herself. She has writ- 
ten other plays, and will probably make for herself a 
unique place in the histrionic ranks. Many regret the 
change from the rostrum to the boards, while some 
think she will add new laurels to those already won. 
The matter is yet undecided ; but she will always be 
best known as a lecturer, whose oratory was marvel- 
lous, and whom the whole country delighted to honor. 

Elizabeth K. ChitrchttJj is one of the lecturers 
who entered the field to speak first on temperance, 
and has found an opportunity to plead for woman suf- 
frage, and various branches of moral reform, with elo- 
quence and power. She has a clear voice ; and her 
remarks are pungent with wit at times, and always 
logical, and abounding in facts and illustrations. Her 
home is in Providence, R.I., where she wrote some of 
her attractive little volumes. She is an active member 
of the board of directors in the Association for the 
Advancement of Women ; and in 1876 was chairman 
of the Committee on 1 idustrial Education, presenting 
to the Congress a fine paper as her report. 

Ednah D. Cheney, now of Boston, Mass., is well 
known as a lecturer on various themes connected with 
art and literature. Adding, to the culture of many 
years of study, the finish of foreign travel and study 

1 Eminent Women of the Age 



WOMEN LECTURERS. 341 

of art abroad, the genius which makes an art critic and 
teacher, she has achieved a fair place among women 
lecturers. Sometimes speaking on moral themes upon 
the Sabbath, sometimes holding conversations, especially 
in the West, she has kept busy with voice as well as 
pen, seeking to benefit her sex and the race. In 1872 
Mrs. Cheney delivered a course of lectures on Enghsh 
literature, in the hall of the Institute of Technology, 
which were very acceptable. 

Jane O. DeForest of Norwalk, O., is an efficient 
and valuable lecturer on woman suffrage, and has 
three lyceum lectures which have given good satisfac- 
tion, entitled " The Morning Dawns," " The PoHtical 
Crisis," and " Popular Evils." The press of Ohio 
gives her high praise ; one paper saying of her lecture, 
" It was elegant, eloquent, and logical ; full of incon- 
trovertible truths, sparkling with witty, palpable hits, 
and spiced with a vein of sarcasm. It had, withal, the 
remarkable feature of offending none, but pleased 
both the friends and foes of the cause the lecturer 
advocates." 

Anna Gardner of Nantucket has lectured, with 
clear voice and fine enunciation, acceptably both in the 
North and South. Her themes have been equal rights, 
woman suffrage, and the education of the colored race. 
She read a paper on the ballot for woman at the 
Woman's Congress held in Philadelphia, centennial 
year. 

Helen P. Jenkins of Pittsburg, Pa., is said to be 
a lady of rare culture, and a good writer and speaker. 
She lectured on the woman question in many of the 
larger towns in Pennsylvania. She has also written a 
series of instructive epistles for the press, entitled "A 
Mother's Letters." 



342 WOME^ OF THE CBNTITRY. 

Sarah M. C. Perkins has lectured grandly on Mar- 
garet Fuller and Mary Lyon. She will be mentioned 
among the women preachers. 

Ada C. Bowles will also be mentioned in the chap- 
ter on preachers. "The Framingham Gazette" said 
in 1872, "The recent lecture of Mrs. Bowles, in 
Sudbury, called out a good audience of all classes of 
our citizens ; and one that has been more highly or 
agreeably entertained for an hour or more we have not 
seen for some time. Stepping upon the platform with 
that free and graceful manner which characterizes cer- 
tain public speakers, the lady, both by her fine personal 
appearance and general aptness to interest and please, 
at once commanded the close attention of her hearers, 
and held the same through the evening. The speaker, 
in her quiet, refined manner, interested all, and cer- 
tainly laid a just claim to respect from friend and foe 
of the cause she so ably advocates." 

Mary F. Eastman, of Tewksbury, Mass., is begin- 
ning to be known as among our best lyceum lecturers. 
Her future as a speaker will be brilliant and useful. 
" The Woman's Journal " says of her : " Highly edu- 
cated, and endowed by Nature with a pleasing address 
and graceful manner, she is also a clear, logical, and 
forcible speaker. We hope that her three lectures, 
entitled respectively, "Not a Public Way — Danger 
ous Passing," " Lend a Hand," and " Ought Women to 
Want to Vote ? " will be as widely known as they are 
worthy of being heard. 

Mrs. C ALLAN an of Des Moines, la., is regarded 
as an excellent lecturer on reformatory themes. A 
Western paper speaks of her lecture on " The Lost 
Rights of Women" as a " quiet, even-toned, logical, and 
dispassionate presentation of some of the considerations 
In favor of extending the baUot to woman." 



WOMEN LECTURERS. 343 

Abba G. Woolson, who is mentioned elsewhere, 
lectures with great eloquence and logical power on 
reformatory subjects. 

Caroline E. Hastings, a physician, lectured in 
Boston during September, 1874, on various physiologi- 
cal matters, illustrating her remarks with charts, mani- 
kins, and models, very successfully. 

Anna Densmorb French, M.D., of New York, did 
the same in Jersey City and elsewhere. The writer 
heard her in the former city, and could but wish that 
every intelligent woman in America could listen to her 
lucid explanations of the anatomy of the human body, 
and her sensible remarks on the hygienic conditions and 
laws which appertain to "a sound mind in a sound 
body." 

Elizabeth A. Kingsbury, besides being a poetical 
contributor to " The Woman's Journal " and other 
papers, has lectured acceptably on " The Hercules of 
the Nineteenth Century," " A Beautiful Woman," and 
*' The Law of Compensation." 

Mrs. Lyman (the wife of Prof. Walter C. Lyman) 
has lectured with success on "Nervous Diseases." The 
press says the lecture was highly interesting and instruc- 
tive. 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (elsewhere mentioned) 
lectured on " Representative Modern Fiction " in Bos- 
ton University. 

Mrs. Benton, late of the Mt. Lebanon Mission in 
Syria, Asia, lectures on the customs of life in that far- 
off land with great success. An editor says, " Mrs. 
Benton told the story of twenty years' life in the Holy 
Land, in the course of which occurred the Druse insur- 
rection of 1860. The story of a missionary's trials and 
dangers, his successes and pleasures, are rarely told 



344 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

more spicily than by Mrs. Benton. She did just what 
she promised to do ; making her hearers see the people 
of whom she spoke, in all the peculiarities of their 
dress, language, and customs." 

Maby S. Clark, who has been a teacher in the 
employ of the Methodist mission in Mississippi, has 
lectured in Richmond, Ind., and elsewhere, on political 
themes. 

Laura De Force Gordon is mentioned among 
Western women as a good lecturer on " The Woman 
Question from a Religious Standpoint." She is re- 
garded as a fine writer and speaker. 

HuXiDA B. Loud of Abington, Mass., has proved 
herself a valuable helper in reform by her eloquent 
lectures. A Berkshire paper speaks of her style as 
original and forcible, and calculated to draw the careful 
attention of the audience. A Greenfield paper says of 
her, " Miss Loud has oratorical ability, a pure, clear 
voice, modest manner, earnest and convincing presence. 
Her language was finished, and free from bombast and 
trivialities. With more experience she will distinguish 
herself as one of the most earnest and effective speak- 
ers among the advocates of the great cause of woman's 
enfranchisement." 

Annie Wittbnmeyeb (elsewhere mentioned) lec- 
tures on " Woman's Work in the Christian Church," 
and Mrs. Van Cott, the evangelist (elsewhere men- 
tioned), on " The Winecup and the Altar." Lizzie 
Boynton Harbert is a vigorous and acceptable lec- 
turer on " Woman Suffrage." Her home is in Iowa, 
where she was married Nov. 18, 1870 ; at which time 
one of the Indianapolis papers said, after a graphic 
notice of the brilliant ceremony, " In common with 
other ladies prominently before the public, she has been 



WOMEN LEOTUBERB. 345 

adjudged as one of those ' dreadful strong-minded 
females,' too anxious for suffrage and office to care 
any thing about matrimony, or that domestic heaven 
which true women are supposed to love above all things 
else. But a woman more refined, with a gentler heart, 
or tastes and loves more domestic, than this same gifted 
girl, does not live. Her writings, through all of which 
is a pervading sense of soul, and graceful charm of ten- 
derness, bear witness to this ; and her position in social 
circles, where she has ever been one of society's 
queens, attests it. Added to this is her well-known 
reputation to make and bake more and better kinds of 
bread and cake than any girl in the Hoosier State." 

MmiAM M. Cole is one of the most graceful writers 
and lecture: ? on woman suffrage in the West. Cul- 
tured and eloquent, pleasing in manner and convincing 
in matter, she is a valuable addition to any corps of 
speakers or writers. She is of New England birth, and 
now resides in a lovely home in western Ohio, with a 
husband who believes in woman's rights, and to whom 
Mrs. Burleigh referred with compliment in her article 
on Mrs. Cole as one of the "people worth knowing." ^ 

H. M. Tracy Cutler (elsewhere mentioned) is a 
noble woman and welcome lecturer. The Grimke 
sisters (Angelina and Sarah) and Abby Kelly Foster 
are to be named among the most weighty lecturers on 
reform. 

Lily Peckham, sweet girl lecturer and preacher, 
has gone to the land of light and peace, leaving a 
tender, blessed memory. 

Martha A. Sisjtson is thus mentioned as a woman 
orator in " The Woman's Journal," by a Washington 
correspondent : " Dignified and commanding in appear- 

1 Woman's Journal, Dec. 31, 1870, Vol. I., No. 52. 



346 WOMEN OF THE CBNTUEY. 

ance, this eloquent woman for more than an hour dis- 
coursed to her audience concerning the ' Soul and 
Biographers of Robert Burns,' interspersing her lecture 
with apt recitations, which she executed in an admira- 
ble manner. All were delighted and charmed." The 
lecturer is said to be of Massachusetts origin. 

Frances E. W. Habper is one of the most eloquent 
women lecturers in the country. As one listens to her 
clear, plaintive, melodious voice, and follows the flow 
of her musical speech in her logical presentation of 
truth, he can but be charmed with her oratory and 
rhetoric, and forgets that she is of the race once en- 
slaved in our land. She is one of the colored women 
of whom white women may be proud, and to whom 
the abolitionists can point and declare that a race which 
could show such women never ought to have been held 
in bondage. She lectures on temperance, equal rights, 
and rehgious themes, and has shown herself able in 
the use of the pen. 

Maria Mitchell has lectured at Swarthmore College 
and elsewhere on astronomical subjects. " The Anti- 
slavery Standard " in 1870 spoke highly of her lecture 
on " The Great Bear," and added the hope that her 
course of lectures at Swarthmore would " prove the ini- 
tiative to a broad and developed field for the exercise of 
her talents, and the diffusion of her astronomical 
knowledge." 

Among those who have lectured on the woman 
question, may be mentioned Dora V. Stoddard of 
Massachusetts, a young woman who was termed earnest 
and pleasing in speech, by the local press. " The 
Woman's Journal " ^ thus refers to another woman 
lecturer: " Miss S. E. Strickland of Vineland, N.J., 

1 Of Aug. 12. 1871. 



WOMEN LECTURERS. 347 

made an excellent impression as a lyceum lecturer last 
winter. Wherever she spoke she was received with 
enthusiasm, and made many warm frieiids. She is a 
woman of education, of industry, and of ideas. She 
speaks extempore with clearness and vigor, and enlivens 
her subjects with a rich fund of anecdotes, pungent hu- 
mor, and scathing sarcasm. Her lectures hitherto have 
been on ' The Failing Health of American Women,' 
and ' Why I Want to Vote.' She has just completed a 
new lecture, entitled, ' What a Woman can Do.' By 
birth she is a Massachusetts women, and for a number 
of years was a teacher in the schools at Springfield and 
Cambridge, and afterwards at Newark, N. J. For 
several years she has been a practical farmer at Vine- 
land, growing fruits and vegetables on her own farm 
by the labor of her own hands. She can tell what a 
woman can do if anybody can. Lyceum committees 
may be sure of satisfaction, when Miss Strickland 
appears on their platforms." This notice is printed in 
full as a deserved tribute to the memory of one who 
has since passed to the other life. 

The blind woman speaker, " Mrs. S. H. DeKroypt, 
familiarly known as ' The Blind Authoress,' is of the 
seventh generation from the distinguished Quaker, 
George Aldrich, who came to this country in 1630, with 
a company of his persecuted people. 

" Mrs. DeKroyft, the eldest daughter of Obed Aldrich, 
was born a little west of the city of Rochester, hard by 
the picturesque and famous cataract known as Genesee 
Falls. When she was but thirteen years of age her 
father became involved by indorsing for a friend, and 
then began with her the stern battle of life. 

" At the early age of fifteen years she conceived the 
idea of obtaining that higher education for which her 



348 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

soul thirsted by teaching winters, and attending the 
Lima Seminaiy summers. In this way she toiled for 
seven years, mastered two foreign languages, completed 
Davies' mathematical course ; and familiarized herself 
with nearly the whole circle of modern science. 

" Soon after leaving school, Mrs. De Kroyft was mar- 
ried to a young physician of Rochester, who, injured by 
a fall from a caniage, died on the evening of their 
wedding-day. And then not quite a month after she 
awoke to find that the sun, moon, and stars had indeed 
gone down upon her young life to rise no more. Thus 
the ideal creatioms and plots of the romancist are fre- 
quently surpassed by the startling phenomena of real 
life. Bruised but not broken by the double blow of 
misfortune, Mrs. DeKroyft's courage soon shaped itself 
into the resolute purpose of making her education 
serve her. Finding at the institution for the blind in 
New York the means of writing, her eloquent produc- 
tions were not long making their way into the paper. 
In 1850 her first work, ' A Place in Thy Memory,' was 
published ; This fairly introduced her to the literary 
world ; and to quote her own words, ' using it for 
spending money,' she has visited almost every civiUzed 
portion of this continent. Shortly after the publica- 
tion of her work, leaving New York for Washington^ 
Mrs. DeKro^^ft bore witli her letters from many of our 
most distinguished citizens, to such men as Henry Clay, 
Senator Houston, Sir Henry Bulwer, Senator Hale, and 
others. Her departure was signalized by the most flat- 
tering notices from the leading metropolitan journals ; 
and while at the Capitol such ladies as Mrs. Ex-Presi- 
dent Madison, Mrs. Gen. Hamilton, Mrs. Commodore 
Shubric, Mrs. Gen. Ashley, late Mrs. John J. Critten- 
den, &c., honored her with their friendship ; and leav- 



"WOMEN LECTURERS. 349 

Washington for Charleston in the latter part of the 
same winter, Pres. Taylor, in a letter to Mrs. DeKJroyft 
introducing her to his friends in the South, said, — 

" ' You are recommended to them by every circum 
stance which can add interest to misfortune ; and I 
gladly bespeak for you the friendly offices of the pro- 
verbially generous and hospitable community which 
you propose to visit. The members of my ^family join 
me in best wishes for a pleasant journey.' 

"Since that time Mrs. DeKroyft has been almost con- 
stantly travelling, everywhere holding communion with 
the ablest and best minds of the age , and beside thus 
growing in knowledge and culture herself, she has 
achieved by her labors one of the noblest and most 
self-sacrificing life-works possible to conceive. More- 
over, devoting her leisure to study, she has even learned 
Latin through the eyes of an amanuensis, and listened 
to Cicero's orations in then- lofty original ; " husked " 
thousands of books through the eyes of others, written 
volumes yet unpublished ; and now, on her entrance 
upon the rostrum, she has won for her oratorical powers 
golden opinion that the most practised might envy." 

Not a few of those who are mentioned among the 
women preachers, Olympia Brown, Phebe A. Han 
AFORD, Mary H. Graves, and others, are lecturers 
also. Mrs. Brown has a fine lecture on " Kansas," and 
her experience there as a speaker. Mrs. Hanaford has a 
lecture on " The Woman in White ; or, Margaret Fuller 
as a Woman, a Writer, and a Power," also a lecture on 
" Women Soldiers ; " one on opportunities and possibili- 
ties, entitled " Come and See ; " and on various reforma- 
tory themes. Women known among reformers and as 
journalists also lecture. Mrs Julia Ward Howe lec- 
tures on literary and philosophic themes, and for 



550 -WOMEN OF THE CBNTUBY. 

reforms. Mrs. Caroline A. Soule has lectured on tem- 
perance, in our own land and in Scotland. In short, 
the name is legion of the women who can speak to 
general acceptance and profit. The only regret in 
closing this chapter is that so many names must be 
omitted. Some will appear in the chapters on reform- 
ers and preachers and physicians, whose names will 
also and ever be gratefully and proudly remembered 
as lecturers. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. An- 
thony, Lucy Stone, Frances E. Willard, and others, are 
none the less good lecturers for being classed elsewhere 
in this volume, as those who are mentioned are none 
the less able to do good service to humanity in other 
ways than by speaking on the platform. America in 
the future will confess that she owes much, very much, 
to her speaking women ; and when the hopes of her 
women lecturers reach fruition, in the grand future of 
other centuries, she will perceive the beauty and truth 
of James Martineau's words, " When speech is given 
to a soul holy and true, time, and its dome of ages, 
'becomes as a mighty whispering-gallery, round which 
the imprisoned utterance runs and reverberates for- 
ever." Words which the women of the first century- 
have uttered will echo in the hearts of grateful miUiona 
yet to be. 

Since the above was first penned Mrs. Elizabeth K. 
Churchill and Miss S. E. Strickland have passed away 
from earth ; but the memory of their true words, bravely 
spoken, will long survive. 







CHAPTER XII. 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 



Anti-Slavery and Temperance Workers — Elizabeth Cady Stanton — 
Lucy Stone — Lucretia Mott — Frances Dana Gage — Susan B, 
Anthony — Frances E. Willard, and others. 

" O Esther ! Ruth ! cried Minta : after all, 
'Tis work we love, and work we long to do, 
But always better work and better still : 
Is not that right ambition ? The good God, 
Letting us labor, makes us like himself. 
Creator, glad in his accomplished work, 
Ever beginning, perfect evermore." 

LuoY Lakcom's Idijl of Work. 

" There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither 
male nor female ; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." — Gal. iii. 28. 



REFORM, as a verb, expresses noble and generous 
action ; as a noun, a mighty and glorious work. 
The word has been as a bugle-call, as a morning re- 
veille. Wilberforce and Clarkson and Fowell Buxton 
heard it ; and the emancipation of slavery in the British 
dominions was the response. Garrison and Phillips 
and Whittier, Lovejoy and Tenney and Theodore 
Parker, heard it ; and with mortal or immortal eyes they 

351 



352 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

now see the triumph of freedom. But, as the British 
reformers were not alone, neither were the American 
reformers without the help of their women relatives 
and friends in this first century of the American Re- 
public, which witnessed the removal of slavery from 
the land. And to the latest hour of this nation's being 
will the anti-slavery reformers be venerated for their 
self-sacrifice and zeal " when days were dark, and 
friends were few." Elizabeth Heyrick was the first in 
England to publish a protest against slavery. The 
women of America were not far behind the men in pro- 
testing against what John Wesley termed " the sum of 
all villanies." Among the earliest of these was Lydia 
Maria Child, whose pen was fervid in its portrayal 
of the vice and crime of slavery. Higginson's interest- 
ing biographical sketch ^ of this revered woman, whom 
Whittier apostrophized in the words, " O woman greatly 
loved I " is sufficient to afford all needful knowledge at 
present of her personally, and can be readily found. 
It shows that her " Appeal for that Class of Americans 
called Africans " was at once the cause of her ostracism 
and her fame. She was contemptuously set aside as 
an author at the South : she became honored as a re- 
former at the North. Among the early abolitionists 
she has a foremost place ; and, if her pen would but 
record her reminiscences of those days, it would com- 
mand an army of readers. Her book was the first anti- 
slavery volume which appeared in America ; and Mr. 
Higginson says, " It had more formative influence on 
my mind, in that direction, than any other." 

" Undaunted, and perhaps stimulated by opposition, 
Mrs. Child followed up her self-appointed task. During 
the next year she published the ' Oasis,' a sort of anti ■ 

1 " Eminent Women of the Ago.'' p. 38, 



WOMEN EBFOBMERS. 353 

slavery annual, — the precursor of Mrs. Chapmaa's 
♦ Liberty Bell ' of later years. She also published, about 
the same time, an ' Anti-Slavery Catechism,' and a 
small book called ' Authentic Anecdotes of American 
Slavery.' Mrs. Child also edited the Anti-Slavery Al- 
manac, and in various ways used her pen vigorously in 
this reform. She is acknowledged as one of the inspir- 
ing workers. Her sympathy with John Brown, and 
her letter to Gov. Wise in his behalf, will bear witness 
to her spirit as a reformer. She is still enlisted in 
moral reform, and believes in woman's suffrage with aU 
her heart, though she is not among the speakers in its 
behalf. She should have been mentioned in the chap- 
ter on literary women, for she is a woman worker in 
the paths of literature, more perhaps than anywhere 
else. Her " Letters from New York," her " Philo- 
thea," her three volumes of " The Progress of Reli- 
gious Ideas through Successive Ages," her " Autumnal 
Leaves," and the juvenile works which she wrote or 
edited, the " Girls' Own Book " among them ; and her 
novels, " Hobomok " and " The Rebels," her " Frugal 
Housewife," — all these books prove how busy have 
been her brain and pen, and that she deserves a place 
among philanthropists, literary women, and reformers. 
The writer of this book feels deeply indebted to her for 
the uplifting influence of her " Letters from New York," 
in early days ; and, while remembering a delightful 
though brief visit to her in Wayland, Mass., adopts 
Col. Higginson's words : " No rural retirement can hide 
her from the prayers of those who were ready to perish 
when they first knew her ; and the love of those whose 
lives she has enriched from childhood will follow her 
fading eyes as they look toward sunset, and, after her 
departing, wiU keep her memory greea." 



354 WOMEN OF THE CENTUKY. 

Abby Kelley Foster is one of the noble reform- 
ers of our first century ; and her name will live ever- 
more as a lecturer whose pioneer work other women 
love to acknowledge. Mr. May says she " performed 
for years an incredible amount of labor. Her manner 
of speaking, in her best days, was singularly effective. 
Her knowledge of the subject was complete, her facts 
were pertinent, her arguments forcible, her criticisms 
were keen, her condemnation was terrible. Few of 
our agents, of either sex, did more work while her 
strength lasted, or did it better." ^ Mrs. Stanton 
speaks of her thus: *' Abby Kelley, a young Quakeress, 
made her first appearance on the anti-slavery platform. 
She was a tall, fine-looking girl, with a large, well- 
shaped head, regular features, dark hair, blue eyes, and 
a sweet, expressive countenance. She was a person of 
clear moral perceptions, and deep feeling. She spoke 
extemporaneously, always well, at times with great 
eloquence and power. . . . For a period of thirty years 
Abby Kelley has spoken on the subject of slavery. 
She has travelled up and down the length and breadth 
of this land, — alike in winter's cold and summer's heat, 
'mid scorn, ridicule, violence, and mobs, suffering all 
kinds of persecution, — still speaking, whenever and 
wherever she gained audience, in the open air, in 
schoolhouse, barn, depot, church, or pubUc hall, on 
week-day or Sunday, as she found opportunity. 1845 
she married Stephen S. Foster; and, soon after, they 
purchased a farm in Worcester, Mass., where, with an 
only daughter, she has lived several years in retirement. 
Having lost her voice by constant and severe use, she 
gave up lecturing while still in her prime." ^ Since 

1 Recollectiona of the Anti-Slavery Conflict. 
"^ Eminent Women of the Age. 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 355 

Mrs. Stanton wiote thus, the daughter has been gradu- 
ated from Vassar College, and the parents have been 
persecuted for their noble adhesion to republican ideas, 
and their refusal to submit to " taxation without repre- 
sentation." Had Mrs. Foster lived in the days of 
martyrdom, she would doubtless have been burnt at the 
stake: as it is, the martyr spirit she has exhibited 
will crown her among American women when their 
right to the ballot is conceded. 

Sarah and Angelina Grlmke were the daughters 
of a slaveholder, but freed the slaves when they be- 
came theirs, in 1836, and came North to lecture on the 
evils of slavery. They were Quakers, and the younger 
was a natural orator. In 1838 Angelina married Theo- 
dore D. Weld ; and they resided in New Jersey, and 
afterwards in Hyde Park, Mass., for many years. Both 
were ready writers, and wrote for the press on woman's 
rights and slavery. Angelina became the mother of 
one daughter and two sons. The daughter married a 
clergyman, after having been an efficient aid in the 
" Woman's Journal " office. 

Abigail Hopper Gibbons, the daughter of the 
benevolent Isaac T. Hopper (whose memoir was writ- 
ten by Mrs. L. M. Child), was one of the early reform- 
ers. Mrs. Stanton says of her, " Though early married, 
and the mother of several children, her life has been 
one of constant activity and self-denial for the public 
good. Those who know her best can testify to her 
many acts of benevolence and mercy, working alike for 
the unhappy slave, the unfortunate of her own sex, the 
children on Randall's Island, and the suffering soldiers 
in our late war." 

Mary Grew of Philadelphia, was " for thirty years 
one of the ablest and most faithful workers both in 



356 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

the anti-slavery and woman 's-rights cause. . . . The 
women who devoted themselves to the anti-slavery 
cause in the early days endured the double odium of 
being abolitionists, and ' women out of their sphere.' 
... A clerical appeal was issued, and sent to all the 
clergymen in New England, calling on them to de- 
nounce in their pulpits this unwomanly and unchris- 
tian proceeding. Sermons were preached portraying 
in the darkest colors the fearful results to the Church, 
the State, and the home, in thus encouraging women 
to enter public life. It was the opposition of the 
clergy to woman's speaking and voting in their meet- 
ings, that occasioned the first division in *■ The Ameri- 
can Anti-Slavery Society.' " When the abolitionists 
met in the World's Convention in London, in 1840, the 
women delegates from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania 
were denied a place. The delegation consisted of 
LucRETiA IVIoTT, Maby Grew, Abby KmBER, Eliz- 
abeth Neale, Sarah Pugh, from Pennsylvania ; Em- 
ily WiNSLOW, Abby Softhwick, and Anne Greene 
Phillips, of Massachusetts, — all worthy women of the 
first century, ostracized on that occasion for no fault of 
theirs, but because the Almighty chose that they. should 
be his daughters rather than his sons. 

Mrs. Stanton says of Mrs. PhiUips, " She had just 
returned from her bridal tour on the Continent, and 
was in the zenith of her beauty. She had a profu- 
sion of dark-brown hair, large, loving blue eyes, and 
regular features. She was tall, graceful, and talked 
with great fluency and force. Her whole soul seemed 
to be in the pending issue. As we were about to enter 
the Convention, she laid her hand most emphatically 
on her husband's shoulder, and said, ' Now, Wendell, 
don't be simmy-sammy to-day, but brave as a Hon ; ' 



WOMEN RBFORMtoiSS. 357 

and he obeyed the injunction." Lucretia Mott ia 
pictured by Mrs. Stanton in graceful manner among 
the " Eminent Women ; " and the readers of this vol- 
ume are urged to read her sketch, and the autobiograph- 
ical statements of Mrs. Mott herself. The two pioneer 
women met in London, and at once became friends for a 
lifetime, as well as co-workers in every reform. Though 
almost eighty-four, the voice of the saintly Lucretia 
Mott was gladly heard at the Woman's Congress held 
in St. George's Hall in October, 1876. Place must be 
found here for her own " testimony " in regard to the 
work to which she has nobly devoted her life. " The 
unequal condition of women in society early impressed 
my mind. Learning, while at school, that the charge 
for the education of girls was the same as that for boys, 
and that, when they became teachers, women received 
but half as much as men for their services, — the injus- 
tice of this was so apparent, that I early resolved to 
claim for myself all that an impartial Creator had 
bestowed. At twenty-five years of age, surrounded 
with a little family and many cares, I felt called to a 
more pubHc life of devotion to duty, and engaged in 
the ministry in our society, receiving every encourage- 
ment from those in authority. ... The temperance 
reform early engaged my attention ; and for more than 
twenty years I have practised total abstinence from all 
intoxicating drinks. The cause of peace has had a 
share of my efforts, leading to the ultra non-resistance 
ground, — that no Christian can consistently uphold 
and actively engage in and support a government based 
in the sword, or relying on that as an ultimate resort. 
The oppression of the working classes by existing 
monopolies, and the lowness of wages, often engaged 
my attention; and I have held many meetings with 



358 WOMEN OF THE CENTUET. 

them, and heard their appeals with compassion, and a 
great desire for a radical change in the system which 
makes the rich richer and the poor jioorer. The vari- 
ous associations and communities tending to a greater 
equality of condition have had from me a hearty God- 
speed. But the millions of down-trodden slaves in our 
land being the greatest sufferers, the most oppressed 
class, I have felt bound to plead their cause, in season 
and out of season, to endeavor to put my soul in their 
souls' stead, and to aid, all in my power, in every right 
effort for their immediate emancipation. This duty 
was impressed upon me at the time I consecrated my- 
self to that gospel which anoints ' to preach deliverance 
to the captives,' to ' set at liberty them that are bruised.' 
... I have travelled thousands of miles in this coun- 
try, holding meetings in some of the slave States, have 
been in the midst of mobs and violence, and have 
shared abundantly in the odium attached to the name 
of an uncompromising abolitionist, as well as partaken 
richly of the sweet return of peace attendant on those 
who would undo the heavy burdens, and let the op- 
pressed go free, and break every yoke. In 1840 a 
World's Anti-Slavery Convention was called in Lon- 
don. Women from Boston, New York, and Philadel- 
phia were delegates to that convention. I was one of 
the number ; but, on our arrival in England, our cre- 
dentials were not accepted because we were women. 
We were, however, treated with great courtesy and 
attention as strangers; and, as women, were admitted 
10 chosen seats as spectators and listeners, while our 
right of membership was denied : we were voted out. 
This brought the woman question more into view ; 
and an increase of interest in the siibject has been the 
result. In this work, too, I have engaged heart and 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 359 

hand, as my labors, travels, and public discoursee 
evince. The misrepresentation, ridicule, and abuse 
heaped upon this as well as other reforms, do not in 
the least deter me from my duty. To those whose 
name is cast out as evil for the truth's sake, it is a 
small thing to be judged of man's judgment." The 
lapse of years will remove the stigma, but increase the 
pure renown, of those earnest abolitionists ; and dear tc 
all women shall become the name of the lovely, fear- 
less, Quaker preacher and reformer, Lucretia Mott. 

Caroline M. Severance was early enlisted in the 
ranks of the reformers. She was born in Canandaigua, 
N.Y., in January, 1820. Her father was a banker, 
Orson Seymour. Her mother was Caroline M. Clark. 
In 1840 she married F. C. Severance, a banker of Cleve- 
land, O. When she was the mother of five children, 
in 1853, she was chosen to read before the Mercantile 
Library Association, in Cleveland, the first lecture ever 
dehvered by a woman in that city. Under a sense of 
duty she wrote that lecture. She had already become 
identified with the woman's rights movement ; hence 
her invitation to speak. An immense audience listened 
respectfully for an hour and three-quarters ; and that 
lecture was repeated in different parts of Ohio. After 
that, she prepared a tract for the Woman's Rights 
Association, and later presented a memorial to the 
Legislature, asking suffrage, and amendments to State 
laws. In 1855 she removed to Massachusetts, and 
there delivered the first lecture ever delivered in 
Boston before a lyceum association by a woman. She 
did not continue laboring as a lecturer, from failure in 
health and voice, but gave good service in various other 
ways as a reformer and philanthropist, and read also a 
course of private lectures on practical ethics, before 



360 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Dio Lewis's school of girls in Lexington, Mass. She 
resided for several years in a beautiful home in West 
Newton, Mass., but is now in California, from whence 
she writes occasionally for the " Woman's Journal," 
and where she is still ready for the grand work of 
reforming the world. 

Frances Dana Gage deserved to be mentioned 
among literary women and in the chapter also on 
women poets ; but her noblest efforts have been in the 
ranks of the reformers, and here the meed of praise so 
richly due shall be accorded. She was bom Oct, 12, 
1808, in Marietta, O. Her father, Joseph Barker, was 
from New Hampshire, — a Western pioneer. Through 
her mother, Ehzabeth Dana, she was allied to the dis- 
tinguished Massachusetts families of Dana and Bancroft. 
"Her father was a farmer and cooper; and the duties of 
a farmer's daughter in a new country were all cheerfully 
and easily disposed of by her. She assisted her father in 
making y>arrels ; and I have heard her often tell, that, as 
she would roU out a well-made barrel, her father would 
pat her on the head, and say, ' Ah, Fanny, you should 
have been a boy I ' ... At the age of twenty-one 
she married James L. Gage, a lawyer of McConnells- 
vUle, O." 

She became the mother of eight children ; and yet, 
with all her domestic labors, she found time to read, 
write for leading journals, and often to speak also, on 
temperance, slavery, and woman's rights. She shared 
the persecutions which reformers know. " In 1853 she 
removed to St. Louis. Those who fought the anti- 
slavery battle in Massachusetts cannot realize the 
danger of such a warfare in a slave-holding State. 
With her usual trunk utterances of opinions, she was 
Boon branded as an abolitionist, her articles excluded 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 361 

from the journals, and she from ' good society,' with 
daily threats of violence to her person, and the destruc- 
tion of her property. Owing to her husband's ill 
health and failure in business, she took the part of 
assistant editor of an agricultural paper in Columbus, 
O. ; but as the breaking out of the war soon destroyed 
the circulation of the paper, and four of her sons had 
gone into the army, her thoughts turned to the scenes 
of conflict in the Southern States. The ' suffermg 
freedmen ' and the ' boys in blue ' appealed alike to her 
loving heart for kindness and help ; and, without 
appointment or salary, she went to Port Royal in 1862. 
She remained in Beaufort, Paris, and Fernandina, 
thirteen months, ministering alike to the soldiers and 
freedmen, as opportunity offered. Pages might be 
written on the heroism of Mrs. Gage and her daughter 
Mary during this period. Oppressed with the magni- 
tude of the work to be accomplished there, she re- 
turned North to give her experiences acquired among 
the freedmen, hoping to rouse others, younger and 
stronger than herself, to go down and teach those 
neglected people the A B C of learning and social life. 
During this year she travelled through many of the 
Northern States, speaking nearly every evening to 
soldiers' aid societies. She worked without pay, only 
asking enough to defray her expenses. When the 
summer days made lecturing impossible, she went as an 
unsalaried agent of the Sanitary Commission down the 
Mississippi to Memphis, Vicksburg, and Natchez. In 
the month of September she was overturned in a 
carriage at Galesburg, DL, which crippled her for that 
year. As soon as she recovered she was employed and 
well paid by various temperance organizations to lec- 
ture for that cause ; and she was thus occupied, when 



362 WOMEN OF THE CENTUET. 

her plans for future activity and usefulness were sud- 
denly terminated by a stroke of paralysis, in August, 
1867." From this illness she has largely recovered, 
but will probably enter no more into public life as a 
speaker. 

" Under the nom de plume of ' Aunt Fanny,' Mrs. 
Gage has written many beautiful stories for children, 
stanzas, and sketches of social life. She was an early 
contributor to the ' Saturday Visitor,' edited by Jane G. 
Swisshelm, and has lately written for ' The New York 
Independent.' A volume of poems and a temperance 
tale, ' Elsie Magoon,' are the last of her published 
works. By her own efforts, Mrs. Gage has accumu- 
lated enough to secure to herself and her children a 
pleasant home for her old age." ^ 

Abby Hutchinson Patton. — *' Among the repre- 
sentative women of the nineteenth century," says Mrs. 
Stanton, " Abby Hutchinson deserves a passing notice. 
She was born in Milford, N.H., one of a large family 
of children. Early in the anti-slavery cause, she with 
four brothers began to sing- in the conventions. In 
all those stormy days of mob violence, the Hutchinson 
family was the one harmonizing element. Like oil on 
the troubled waters, their sweet songs would soothe to 
silence those savages whom neither appeal nor defiance 
could kwe. Abby made her first appearance in public 
at an early age. Anti-slavery, woman's rights, temper- 
ance, peace, and democracy have been her themes ; 
singing alike in the Old World and the New. To 
farmers on New England's granite hills, to pioneers on 
the far-off prairies, to merchant princes in crowded 
cities, and to kings, queens, and nobles in palaces and 
courts, have those girlish lips sung the republican 

1 Eminent "Women of the Age, p. 385. 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 363 

anthem, ' All men are created equal.' She was a girl 
of strong character, and nice sense of propriety in 
all things. Although until her marriage her life was 
wholly a public one, yet she never lost the modesty, 
delicacy, and refinement so peculiarly her own. . . . 
All admit that ' the Hutchinson family ' have acted 
well their part in the cause of reform ; and a second 
generation is singing still." 

Elizabeth Chase Hutchinson, the wife of Asa B. 
Hutchinson, ought not to be unmentioned in this 
volume, by the friend of her school-days. She was 
born on Nantucket, was a fine singer, and sang the 
songs of reform for many years in public. Of lovely 
spirit and person, she attracted many hearts. Later in 
life she removed with her family to the West, where 
she died suddenly, while laboring earnestly in the' 
Sunday-school work and the great temperance reform. 
She was about forty-six years of age, and left a son 
and daughter ; her oldest son, who used to sing with 
her, having gone before her to the better land. The 
memory of such a woman is blessed. 

Antoinettf, Brown and Lucy Stone were reform- 
ers from their early days. They were students in 
Oberlin, and there became fast fiiends : they have since 
become sisters by marrying Samuel and Henry B. 
Blackwell. Antoinette is elsewhere honorably men- 
tioned. Of Lucy Stone Mrs. Stanton says, " She was 
the first speaker who really stirred the nation's heart 
on the subject of woman's wrongs. Young, magnetic 
eloquent, her soul filled with the new idea, she drew 
immence audiences, and was eulogized everywhere by 
the press. She spoke extemporaneously." Her birth- 
place was West Brookfield, Mass. Having obtained a 
liberal education at Oberlin College, and discovered 



864 WOMEN OF THE CENTUEY 

her ability as a speaker, she returned to New England, 
and became an agent for the Anti-slavery Society, and 
went forth to speak alternately for woman and the 
slave. She spoke in all the large cities of the West, 
and in some of the Southern cities. In 1855 she was 
married to Henry B. Blackwell ; T. W. Higginson, then 
a Unitarian pastor, performing the ceremony. " She 
accepted the usual marriage under protest ; her hua- 
bdud renouncing all those rights of authority and 
ownership which were his in law, and she retaining 
her own name. Although this has been to her a 
source of great annoyance and persecution, from friends 
as well as enemies ; yet, feeling that the principle of 
woman's individualism was involved in a lifelong 
name, she has steadily adhered to her decision. . . 
She has one daughter ; and since her marriage her 
life has been spent in retirement, until the news that 
Kansas was to submit the proposition to strike the 
words ' whi*^e male ' from her constitution, to a vote of 
the people, roused her again to public duty. She spent 
two months in the spring of 1867, travelling through 
that State, speaking to large audiences." Since then 
she has labored untiringly for woman suffrage ; and is 
one of the able and active editors of " The Woman's 
Journal." Grateful generations of women will yet 
speak with loving reverence the spotless name of the 
brave reformer and consistent woman-suffragist, Lucy 
Stone. The following is an eloquent appeal from her 
faithful, fearless pen, in " The Woman's Journal," 
during the presidential canvass of centennial year : — 

" Women of the United States, never forget that you 
are excluded by law from participation in the great 
question which at this moment agitates the whole 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 335 

country, — a question which is not only who the next 
candidate for president shall be, but what shall be the 
policy of the government for the next four years. 

" So great is the interest felt in it, that men of all 
grades, from all parts of the Union, have left, the 
scholar his books, the clergyman his pulpit, the mer- 
chant his counter, the lawyer his office, and the busiest 
man his business, to cast his vote, or to be heard and 
felt at Cincinnati. 

" The interest transcends every merely personal thing. 
When the selection is made, and the kind of govern- 
ment we are to have during the next four years is 
indicated, every man holds his vote ready to help settle 
the question. He may be learned or ignorant, wise or 
foolish, drunken or sober : the beggar at the gate, and 
the thief out of jail, every man of them has his vote. 
But for you, every woman of you, the dog on your rug, 
or the cat in your corner, has as much political power 
as you have. Never forget it. And when the country 
is shaken, as it will be for months to come, over the 
issue, never forget that this law-making power settles 
every interest of yours. It settles, from the crown of 
your head to the sole of your feet, every personal right. 
It settles your relation to and right in your child. 
You earn or inherit a dollar ; and this same power 
decides how much of it shall be yours, and how much 
it will itself take or dispose of for its own use. Oh, 
women, the one subjugated class in this great country, 
the only adult people who are ruled over ! pray for a 
baptism of fire to reveal to you the depth of the humil- 
iation, the degradation, and the unspeakable loss which 
comes of your unequal position." 

CABOrJtNE H. Dall of Boston has done brave service 



366 WOMEN OP THE CENTCTBY. 

as a reformer, by her voice and pen. She is a Boston 
woman, highly educated, and an able writer. Mrs. 
Stanton calls her " a close student," and " an encyclo- 
{isedia of historical facts and statistics." 

She has published several books on woman in various 
relations ; and her book " The College, the Market, and 
the Court," dedicated to Lucretia Mott, is a most 
valuable work for reference, and was called by a New 
York reviewer " the most eloquent and forcible state- 
ment of the woman's question which has been made." 
She may be mentioned again, as a good worker in other 
directions. 

C. I. H. Nichols, a native of Vermont, resided "in 
Kansas though all the troubles in that State; and to 
her influence, in a measure, is due its liberal laws for 
woman. She was in the first constitutional convention, 
and pressed woman's claims on its consideration. Mrs. 
Nichols is an able writer and speaker, and is as thor- 
oughly conversant with the laws of her State as any 
judge or lawyer in it ; and she has taken a i)rorainent 
part in all reforms for the last twenty years." ^ 

Susan B. Anthony, according to Mrs. Stanton, 
" was born at the foot of the Green Mountains, South 
Adams, Mass., Feb. 15, 1820. Her father, Daniel 
Anthony, was a stern Quaker; her mother, Lucy Read, 
a Baptist ; but, being liberal and progressive in their 
tendencies, they were soon one in their religion. Her 
father was a cotton-manufacturer, and the first dollar 
she ever earned was in his factory. Though a man of 
wealth, the idea of self-support was early impressed on 
all the daughters of the family. In 1826 they moved 
into Washington County, N.Y., and in 1846 to Roches- 
ter. She was educated in a small select school in her 

1 Eminent "Women of the Age 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 367 

father's house, until the age of seventeen, when she 
went to a boarding-school in Philadelphia. Fifteen 
years of her life were passed in teaching school in 
different parts of the State of New York. Although 
superintendents gave her credit for the best-disciplined 
school, and the most thoroughly taught scholars, in the 
county, yet they paid her but eight dollars a mouth, 
while men received from twenty-four to thirty dollars. 
After fifteen years of faithful labor, and the closest 
economy, she had saved but three hundred dollars. 
This experience taught her the lesson of woman's 
rights ; and, when she read the reports of the first con- 
ventions, her whole soul responded to the new demand. 
Her earliest public work was in the temperance move- 
ment. . . . From 1852 she has been one of the leading 
spirits in every woman's right's convention, and has 
been the acting secretary and general agent through all 
these years ; and when in 1866 we re-organized under 
the name of the ' American Equal Rights Association,' 
she was re-appointed to both these offices. From 1857 
to 1866, Miss Anthony was also an agent and faithful 
worker in the anti-slavery cause until the emancipation 
edict proclaimed freedom throughout the land. She 
has been untiring in her labors in securing the liberal 
legislation we now have for women in the State of New 
York." ^ Miss Anthony deserves the fame she has won 
as a reformer ; and her pure life and earnest words for 
temperance and human rights will command the respect 
of future generations, when all strife and controversy 
concerning woman's rights shall have passed away. 

Olympia Brown deserves mention among earnest 
reformers, but will be mentioned more fully elsewhere. 
She deserves all the commendation that is given by 

1 Eminent Women of the Age. 



368 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Mrs. Stanton, to the workers in the reform known as 
that of woman suffrage. She says, " It is no exaggera- 
tion to state, that the women identified with this ques- 
tion are distinguished for intellectual power, moral 
probity, and religious earnestness. Most of them are 
able speakers and writers, as their published speeches, 
letters, novels, and poems fully show. Those who have 
seen them in social life can testify that they are good 
housekeepers, true mothers, and faithful wives. I have 
known women in many countries and classes of society ; 
and I know none more noble, deHcate, and refined, in 
word and action, than those I have met on the woman's 
rights platform. True, they do not possess the volup- 
tuous grace and soft manners of the petted children of 
luxury ; they are not clothed in purple and fine linen, 
faring sumptuously every day ; for most of them are 
self-made women, who through hardships and sacrifice 
have smoothed the rugged paths for multitudes about 
them, and earned a virtuous independence for them- 
selves. All praise to those who, through ridicule and 
scorn, have changed the barbarous laws for woman in 
many of the States, and brought them into harmony 
with the higher civilization in which we live ! " 

The lady whose vigorous pen has helped to the men- 
tion of others in this chapter must not be overlooked 
herself; for few women have done more to open paths 
of usefulness and success to other women lecturers and 
reformers. 

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the daughter of 
Judge Daniel Cady and Margaret Livingston, and was 
born Nov. 12, 1816, in Johnstown, N.Y., not far from 
Albany. " A Yankee said that his chief ambition was 
to become more noted than his native town. Mrs. 
Stanton has lived to see her historic birthplace shrink 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 369 

ito a mere local repute, while she herself has been 
V, acted, ridiculed, and abused into a national fame." 
Li the office of her father, the judge, Mrs. Stanton 
bvcame first acquainted with the legal disabilities of 
women under the old common law. The graphic and 
inlsresting sketch of Mrs. Stanton, in the " Eminent 
Wtanen of the Age," is commended to the reader of 
this volume, for incidents concerning her, for which 
spact* cannot be found here, and which prove her to 
have been early an advocate of human rights. " In 
1837, in her twenty-fourth year, while on a visit to 
her distinguished cousin Gerrit Smith, at Peterboro', 
in the central part of New York State, she made the 
acquaintance of Mr. Henry B. Stanton, then a young 
and fervid orator, who had won distinction in the anti- 
slavery movement. The acquaintances speedily became 
friends ; the friends grew into lovers ; and the lovers, 
after a short courtship, married, and immediately set 
sail for Europe. This voyage was undertaken not 
mert ly for pleasiu'e and sight-seeing, but that Mr Stan- 
ton might fulfil the mission of a delegate to the 
Wo] d's Anti-Slavery Convention, to be held in Lon- 
don, m 1810. " There Mrs. Stanton met Lucretia Mott, 
and learned that there were others who felt the yoke 
women were bearing as well as herself. She was once 
asked, "What most impressed you in Europe?" and 
repUed, " Lucretia Mott." Their friendship has never 
waned ; and they have worked together for reforms, all 
the long years since that meeting. 

" The practice of going before a legislature, to pre- 
sent the claims of an unpopular cause, has been more 
common in many other States than in New York ; 
most common, perhaps, in Massachusetts. With the 
single exception of Mrs. Lucy Stone, — a noble and 



370 WOMEIS OF THE CENTURY. 

gifted woman, to whom her sisterhood owe an affec- 
tionate gratitude not merely for an eloquence that has 
charmed thousands of ears, but for practical efforts in 
aboUshing laws oppressive to their sex, — I believe that 
Mrs. Stanton has appeared oftener before a State legis- 
lature than caa be said of any of her co-laborers.. She 
has repeatedly addressed the Legislature of New York, 
at Albany, and, on these occasions, has always been 
honored by the presence of a brilliant audience, and 
has always spoken with dignity and ability. Her chief 
topics have been the needful changes in the laws relat- 
ing to intemperance, education, divorce, slavery, and 
suffrage. ' Yes, gentlemen,' said she, in her address of 
1854, ' we, the daughters of the revolutionary heroes 
of '76, demand at your hands the redress of our 
grievances, a revision of your State constitution, a 
new code of laws.' At the close of that grand and 
glowing argument, a lawyer who had hstened to it, 
and who knew and revered Mrs. Stanton's father, 
shook hands with the orator, and said, ' Madam, it 
was as fine a production as if it had been made and 
pronounced by Judge Cady himself.' This, t< the 
daughter's ears, was sufficiently high praise." 

Mrs. Stanton has lectured extensively, and written 
much on reformatory themes. " The sacred lore of 
motherhood is to her a familiar study. Five sons and 
two daughters sit around her table, all as proud of 
their mother as if she were a queen of fairy-land, and 
they her pages in waiting. Drinking not seldom at the 
fountain of sorrow, she has found, in its bitter waters, 
strength for her soul. Religious and worshipful by 
constitution, she has cast off, in her later life, the super- 
stitions of her earlier, but has never lost her child- 
hood's faith in God. Society being (as she looks at it) 



WOMEN REFORMEKS. 371 

full of hollowness and falsity, she sometimes yearns 
for its reformation as if her heart would break, — 
the cause of woman's elevation being with her not 
merely a passion, but a religion. She would willingly 
give her body to be burned, for the sake of seeing her 
sex enfranchised." When the desire of her heart is 
gratified, her name will be gratefully remembered. 

Charlotte B. Wilbour has also a claim to a high 
place among reformers, and could also have been men- 
tioned among lecturers, as she has spoken widely and 
acceptably on various themes ; and also among " liter- 
ary women," as her charming volume " Soul to Soul " 
would bear witness. As a reformer, she has spoken 
before legislatures and in conventions. She was the 
efficient and beloved president of the New York 
woman's club, called Sorosis, for five years (though for 
eleven months of the last year she was in Europe, and 
Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford was acting president of 
Sorosis in her stead) ; and she was among the first to 
issue a call for the Woman's Congress. Her maiden 
name was Beebe ; and she is the daughter of a clergy- 
man, and was finely educated. She is now in Europe 
superintending the education of her children, and add- 
ing to the culture of her superior mind. Connecticut 
is believed to be her native State ; but she has been 
long a resident of New York City, and, as a woman 
suffragist, has several times appeared before the legisla- 
ture of New York, in behalf of measures calculated to 
benefit women. She has also engaged in the peace 
movement, and has not been unsympathetic in other 
reforms. 

Charlotte Austin Joy, of Nantucket Island, 
should be mentioned amid reformers ; for she was one 
of the early anti-slavery, temperance, and dress-reform 



372 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

advocates, and her zeal has never abated. For manj' 
years she wore the reform costume, and was numbered 
among the vegetarians and hydropathists. Several late 
years have been spent on the Isle of Wight (minister- 
ing to an invalid husband, Hon. David Joy of Nan- 
tucket, who was in sympathy with all reforms), where 
she presided over temperance gatherings, and with her 
pen and in other ways aided more active reformers. 
At her husband's death she returned to America, 
visited California, and is now at home in Hopedale, 
near Milford, Mass., among many noble and earnest 
reformers who once formed there a semi-religious com- 
munity ready for every good word and work. 

Abby and Julia Saqth of Glastonbury, Conn., 
well desei-ve to be mentioned with reformers, since 
they have been willing to suffer in defence of woman's 
rights, and to prove that they believe " taxation with- 
out representation " is wrong. They have been perse- 
cuted by their neighbors, and their cattle sold for taxes 
they beheved ought not to be paid. One of these 
sisters has translated the entire Bible, and it is pub- 
lished by a Hartford firm. They are aged, highly 
respectable women, and their labors will prove " not in 
vain in the Lord." In days to come their sacrifices 
will be appreciated and their firmness honored, as we 
now honor the boldness of resistance to tyranny in 
Samuel Adams and other Revolutionary patriots. 
Catherinb a. F. Stebbins, of Detroit, has been a 
reformer for many long years, and by voice and pen 
assisted in anti-slavery and temperance work. She is 
now carrying vigorously forward the woman movement 
in every possible way, in which she is nobly seconded 
by her husband, Giles B. Stebbins, Esq., whose work, 
" Chapters from the Bible of the Ages," has won much 
attention. 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 373 

Sabah M. Stuart of Hyde Park, Mass., was one 
of those fifty-two women who called a public meeting, 
made out a ticket for town officers, and proceeded in a 
body to the town-hall, in the fiercest snowstorm of the 
year, to vote. Of Mrs. Stuart it is said, " The cause 
of woman and the cause of the slave were her first 
love, the twin passions alike of her early girlhood and 
mature womanhood. For eight years she had been 
slowly dying of an incurable disease. . . . Upon that 
memorable voting-day, at the hour appointed, the wind 
and snow, a blinding hurricane, swept the streets ; but 
go she must : so, wrapped in furs and comfortables, the 
strong arms of her husband bore her from her bed to 
the carriage, and at the polls took her thence to the 
ballot-box, whence, after her own hand had deposited 
her vote, she was in the same way conveyed to her 
chamber." She has gone to the land " where the 
inhabitant shall not say, I am sick ; " and her memory 
will be precious among reformers forever. Josephine 
S. Griffinq has gone up higher. Let Prof. Wilcox 
tell her story : — 

" The noble band of women who since 1847 have 
labored for the enfranchisement of their sex is now 
broken. Josephine S. Griffing died last week, quit- 
ting us before many whom it was thought she would 
outlive. Till lately, her name was little known in the 
nation ; but the poor and the outcast, the lame, the 
blind, and the bedridden, whose guardian angel she 
was, will long water her grave with their tears. 

" She was born near Hartford fifty years ago. Her 
maiden name was White ; and she was a niece of Mr. 
Waldo the artist, who painted all our grandparents' 
portraits, and lived to paint those of the grandchildren 



374 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

during a hale, genial old age. She married young, and 
went to Salem to struggle with the forest and the soil, 
when Ohio was half woods. From Salem an influence 
went out all over the State, that lifted public opinion 
to a higher level in many things. Side by side with 
Parker Pillsbury, she fought the devil of slavery ; and, 
beside her domestic duties, she did yeoman's service in 
the cause of freedom. The war brought her to Wash- 
ington, where for a time she kept a boarding-house in 
which George W. Julian and other leading Republi- 
cans lived more as friends than as boarders. But the 
time needed her in a larger sphere. The exigencies of 
war drove into the District of Columbia, after the 
abolition of slavery there, thousands on thousands of 
untutored and starving freed people. As agent of the 
Freedman's Relief Association, she undertook the care 
of these, and labored for them while her strength 
lasted, with scarce a day's vacation but such as sick- 
ness compelled. The strong were sent where they could 
find employment ; the feeble were fed and clothed. 
. . . She carried appropriation after appropriation 
through Congress ; winning support from the best sen- 
ators and representatives, overcoming the worst, and 
cutting the knots of red-tape that army jealousy tied. 
The best men of the nation were her friends and help- 
ers. . . . All over the land, hearts of every station in 
life will thrill with sorrow at the news of her decease. 

" In 1867 she took a leading part in forming the 
Universal Franchise Association, and from that time 
forth added to her other tasks the active advocacy of 
woman suffrage, of which she had long been a sup- 
porter. In this she took the leading part, being, from 
the first, president of the managers and members of 
the executive committee. In presenting this subject 



WOMEN REP0KMER8. 375 

to Cougress aud the puhlic, she showed the rare tact 
and judgment that marked her every act. In noisy, 
turbulent meetings, her gentle, simple dignity com- 
manded a hearing ; and when she began to speak in her 
low, sympathetic tones, the rudest listened with respect; 
while she carried her hearers with her so easily that 
they hardly suspected they were giving ear to any thing 
uncommon, till her ceasing startled them first into 
thrilled silence, and then into rapturous applause. 
Laboring harder and harder, she failed in health stead- 
ily ; till, at last May's meeting in New York, a great 
screen was placed behind her on the platform, that her 
weakened voice might reach the audience. She died 
of sheer overwork, faithful and earnest to the last." 

Mr. Garrison writes in memoriam of his wife, Helen 
E. Garrison, this sonnet : — 

♦' The grave, dear sufferer, had for thee no gloom, 

And Death no terrors when his summons came. 

Unto the dust retujus the mortal frame : 
The vital spirit, under no such doom, 
Waa never yet imprisoned in the tomb ; 

But rising heavenward, an ethereal flame, 

Shines on unquenched, in essence still the same 
As is the light that doth all worlds illume. 
Thou art translated to a higher sphere. 

To gain companionshij^ among the blest, 
Released from all that made life painful here. 

And so prepared to enter into rest : 
If stricken hearts bend weeping o'er thy bier, 

Still, still, for them, for thee, all's for the best I " 

Her name we gladly place among the reformers, as 
also the name of one thus mentioned by the Boston 
" Commonwealth ; " — 

" We lately mentioned the death of Hannah Cox 



dlG WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

at Longwood, Penn., one of the original abolitionists. 
She joined the first movement in favor of emancipation 
With a zeal which no opposition could shake, and no 
discouragement quench. The early heroes and hero- 
ines of the cause — Lundy, Garrison, Lucre tia Mott, 
Whittier, and others — were cheered and welcomed by 
her and her steadfast husband, at a time when theii 
names were outlawed from public respect. When 
Thomas Garrett established the starting-point of the 
' underground railroad ' in Wilmington, Del., the house 
of the Coxes at Longwood became the first station 
on the way to the Canadian terminus. For years the 
quiet farmer and his wife received the fugitive slave, 
and carried him by night on his way northward. 
When in September, 1873, they celebrated their golden 
wedding, Whittier sent them his poem (which will be 
found in his last volume) on ' The Golden Wedding 
of Longwood,' in which are the lines : — 

' Blessings upon you ! what did you for that sad, suffering one, 
So homeless, faint, and naked, unto our Lord was done.' 

Bayard Taylor, whose native place is but three milea 
from Longwood, was at that time in Germany ; but he 
also sent a poem containing the following mention of 
the former guests of John and Hannah Cox : — 

' Here Lowell came, iu radiant youth, 

A soul of fixed endeavor j 
Here Parker spake with lipa of truth 

That soon were closed forever ; 
Here noblest Whittier, scorned and spumed, 

Found love and recognition ; 
Here Garrison's high faith returned. 

And Thompson's pure ambition.' " 

The names of Hannah Darlington and Deborah 



WOMEN KBFORMERS. 377 

Feknook, and many others of the Longwood Progress- 
ive Friends, belong with those of reformers ; for they 
shared in the spirit and work of those who would lift 
the world from evil to good. 

Lellee Devebeux Blake has done much impor- 
tant work for the suffrage cause, having carried on 
many large meetings and conventions, and delivered 
many lectures and speeches on the subject. She 
addressed the Constitutional Convention in 1873, and 
the New York Legislature in 1873, 1874, and 1876, on 
that theme. She should have been mentioned also 
among lecturers, having given many lectures on literary 
themes in various parts of the country. 

Mrs. Blake is a writer also, having published several 
novels and sketches, and is still using her pen vigorous- 
ly for various periodicals. She has been twice married, 
first to a lawyer who died in 1859, and second to a 
merchant in New York City where she now resides. 
" Her father was Mr. George Devereux, descendant of 
Sir Thomas PoUok, one of the first governors of North 
Carolina. Her mother was Miss Sarah E. Johnson, 
daughter of Judge Johnson of Stratford, Conn., and 
grand-daughter of Hon. W. L. Johnson, one of the 
first two senators from Connecticut. Both mother and 
father were descended from Jonathan Edwards ; her 
father's grandmother, and her mother's grandfather, 
being his two youngest children. She was born in 
Raleigh, N.C., and passed her infancy on her father's 
plantation on the Roanoke River. After his death her 
mother sold her Southern property, and fixed her resi- 
dence in New Haven, Conn., where she was educated." 
Mrs. Blake is yet a young woman, and will doubtless 
do still more valuable service as a reformer. 

The temperance reform has received a new and 



S78 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

marvellous impetus from what is known as the 
woman's crusade. By fervent prayer women have 
consecrated themselves to the effort of saving humani- 
ty from the curse of intemperance. Some of the most 
cultured women, unused to public work, and shrink- 
ing from any undue publicity in Christian efforts, yet 
felt it a duty to join the ranks of the crusaders, visit 
the liquor-saloons, and pray with those who were deal- 
ing out the draught that destroyed thousands, and 
desolated many homes. Women suffer from the intem- 
perance of the men. It was well for women to rise in 
their spiritual might, and do all in their power to ban- 
ish the intoxicating cup. Many women thus became 
reformers, and wrote their names among the immortal 
ones " that were not born to die ; " but of these blessed 
women, many thousands in numbei, little comparative- 
ly can here be said. Their names are in the Lamb's 
book of life, and the noble work they have done will 
be long remembered to their highest praise. Though 
the kindness of Miss Willard, Mrs. Bolton, and others, 
a few sketches of some of the Western workers have 
been obtained for this volume ; but, it must be con- 
fessed, this is hardly enough to do justice to the work- 
ers in that grand army of the Lord. 

A volume called '"• A History of the Crusade '' wiU 
tell the story better than it can be told here ; and every 
reader of this book, who reveres woman and hei 
Christian work, is advised to obtain a copy of that 
book. 

This woman's crusade has attained much historic 
prominence, and is a marked feature in the closing 
years of our first century. The following essay, read 
on an anniversary occasion, will be read with great 
interest : — 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 379 

" On the evening of the 23d of December, 1873, 
might have been seen in the streets of Hillsboro', per- 
sons singly or in groups, wending their way to Music 
Hall, where Dr. Dio Lewis of Boston, Mass., was to 
deliver a lecture on temperance. 

" Little did they dream that a flame would be kindled 
that night, which ' many waters should not quench,' 
and whose light should shine into the dark places of 
the earth, bringing terror to the evil-doer, and beaming 
as a ' star of hope ' on those sad hearts in whom the 
last ray of hope had well-nigh perished. 

" It is not necessary to give more than a brief men- 
tion of Dr. Lewis's address. He believed and argued 
that the work of temperance reform might be carried 
on successfully by women, if they would set about it 
in the right manner, — going to the saloon-keeper in a 
spirit of Christian love, and persuading him, for the 
sake of humanity and his own eternal welfare, to quit 
the hateful, soul-destroying business. 

" It will be proper to state here, that Hillsboro' was 
at this time by no means exempt from the universal 
scourge of intemperance. Its victims were from all 
ranks of society, name, profession, fortune, influence. 
The hopes and ambitions of a lifetime were as noth- 
ing : all were sacrificed to the love of strong drink. 
Mothers were broken-hearted, wives worse than wid- 
owed, and little children were crying for bread. 

" What was to be done ? The Sons of Temperance 
and the Good Templars had made vain efforts to arrest 
the evil. At times there had been an awakening to 
the danger ; and men good and true banded themselves 
together in the endeavor to reclaim the inebriate, and 
punish the dramseller. But these efforts seemed to 
fad of permanent effect ; and the prospect was a cheer- 
less one, in view of any fresh undertaking. 



380 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

" The plan laid down by Dr. Levels challenged atten- 
tion by its novelty, at least ; and, seeing him so full of 
faith, the hearts of the women seized the hope, — a 
■ forlorn ' one, 'tis true, but still a hope ; and, when Dr. 
< ewis asked if they were willing to undertake the task, 
scores of women rose to their feet. The men were not 
a whit behind. They pledged themselves to uphold 
and encourage the women by counsel, co-operation, 
and money. 

" A meeting for the further development of the plan 
and organization of the League was agreed upon, to be 
held in the Presbyterian Church at ten o'olock next 
morning, — Wednesday, Dec. 24 ; and at the appointed 
hour there was gathered a solemn assembly. A strange 
:vork was to be done, and by unaccustomed hands. 
On bended knee, and with uplifted hearts, they invoked 
the blessing and guidance of Him who ' knoweth the 
end from the beginning,' and then proceeded to the 
business of the hour. 

" A compiittee was appointed, who should prepare 
a.71 appeal which was to be presented to the liquor- 
seller ; also a druggist's pledge and a dealer's pledge. 
OflP-jers werft elected, and the morning's work planned 
out. 

" A psalm was then read by the president of the 
League, Mrs. E. J. Thompson ; and, after a hymn and 
prayer, seventy-five women passed in procession into 
the street. The crusade had begun. 

" It had been decided that every place in the town, 
where intoxicating liquors were sold, should be visited. 

" First the drug-stores, as being most likely to assist 
by their sympathy and co-operation ; then the hotels ; 
and lastly the saloons. 

" These visits were made on the 24tb and 26th of 
December, with the following results • - 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 381 

" Two of the druggists signed the pledge uuhesitat- 
ingly and without reservation ; the third reserved the 
right to prescribe as a physician, and sell on his own 
prescription ; the fourth postponed his answer (the an- 
swer was received by the League a few days after, 
declining to sign the pledge presented, but offering one 
of his own, which, after careful consideration by the 
women, was not accepted). 

" The hotel-keepers tried to justify themselves by 
saying that a bar was necessary for the comfort of 
travellers, that they could not keep up their houses 
without it, that their customers would go away to 
other places, &c. ; but agreed that, if all the rest of the 
liquor-sellers would close, they would, thus trying to 
shift the responsibility upon other shoulders than their 
own. 

" The saloonists admitted the fact that it was a bad 
business, but were full of excuses and reasons why 
they could not give it up. 

" At this time there were in Hillsboro' four hotel- 
bars constantly ojien, and five saloons, or dramshops ; 
these, with the four drug-stores, making thirteen places 
where strong drink could be obtained. 

" The efforts of the women were directed to the 
closing of all the saloons, and inducing the druggists 
to pledge themselves to sell only on a physician's 
prescription, or for mechanical, scientific, or sacramental 
purposes ; and they agreed to stand by each other in 
this work until the end was accomplished. 

'' ' The end is not yet ; ' but the labors of the crusa- 
ders — for they have accepted the name given in derision 
— have not been in vain. Let us glance briefly over 
the history of the past two years. 

" The street work, which was the prominent feature 



382 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

of this movement, was continued almost daily from 
Dec. 24, 1873, to the middle of the following June. A 
band or committee of women visited some or all of 
the drinking-places — including the drug-store whose 
proprietor refused to accede to the wishes of the women 
— every morning after the prayer-meeting. A leader 
was chosen, whose duty it was to make the appeal, and 
present the pledge to the liquor-seller, and try by every 
kind and persuasive argument to induce him to sign it. 

" At first the men seemed wilHng to discuss the 
question, to bring forward their excuses, and listen 
civilly to the persuasions of the women; but after 
awhile, finding that it was not a transient, spasmodic 
effort, but was assuming a permanent form, and being 
determined not to yield, they closed their doors each 
day at the hour when the women were in the habit of 
visiting them. Thus failing to gain admittance, the 
women kneeled in the street, and prayed before the 
closed doors. 

" About this time (February) it began to be whis- 
pered around that the Adair Law was in danger. 
Immediately the telegraph flashed messages back and 
forth between the leagues throughout the State. Dele- 
gates were elected to be ready to start at a moment's 
notice for Columbus. A petition against the repeal 

was sent from H , with three hundred and four 

names, all signed at an evening meeting. There was 
not time to canvass the town, and friends at Columbus 
were ready to send word of the first attack on the law. 

" Whether or not this note of preparation intimidated 
its enemies, the law was not repealed. 

" Mr. W. H. H. Dunn, druggist, becoming much 
incensed at the repeated v-isits of the women in their 
efforts to induce him to sign the pledge, and particu- 



WOMEN REFORMEBS. 383 

larly when they had a shelter erected in the street in 
front of his store, where they might sing and pray 
without exposure to the winter's blasts, got out an 
injunction restraining the women from visiting him ir 
that way. 

" Application was immediately made for a dissolution 
of the injunction, and the case came on at the February 
term of court. The injunction was dissolved on the 
finding of a legal flaw in the application of the plaintiff. 

" Mr. Dunn also brought suit against the crusaders 
for alleged trespass, and asked ten thousand dollars 
damages. This suit was not to come on for some 
months, owing to the fact that the parties were not 
ready for trial. 

" Meantime the women decided not to go on with the 
street work while this suit was pending, having no wish 
to defy the law, even in appearance. But there was 
plenty to do. 

" T^he Constitutional Convention had at last finished 
its labors, and sent forth, for the consideration of the 
people of Ohio, a new constitution. In this constitu- 
tion, provision had to be made for the management of 
the traffic in, and manufacture of, ardent spirits. 

" So strong had become the influence of the temper- 
ance movement, that the members of the convention, 
men of sound judgment and discrimination, saw that, 
to meet the question fairly, they must submit to the 
people a choice as to which of two clauses should he 
inserted into the constiiution ; one favoring the system 
of license to sell intoxicating liquors, the other opposed 
to license. 

"But what had the women to do with this? They 
were not voters. No, they were not voters, but they 
would be sufferers if the State licensed this terrible 



384 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

traffic. They could not hesitate, they dared not hold 
back. 

" Meetings were appointed in the churches and 
schoolhouses of the rural districts ; and to these meet- 
ings the crusaders went in little parties of three or four 
or half a dozen, and tried to infuse the spirit of the 
crusade into the hearts of the people. Their utterances 
were from the fulness of their own hearts only. No 
labored arguments, no long winded-speeches : just talk- 
ing the matter over as friend with friend, or as one 
neighbor might speak with another. How kindly their 
words were received, and how heartily their efforts 
were seconded by the men of Ohio, let the fate of the 
license clause tell. 

" At the close of the summer of 1874, four saloons 
had been closed ; one hotel had changed hands, and 
become a temperance house ; auxiliary leagues had 
been established in most of the townships in Highland 
County ; and the women had done their share in defeat- 
ing the license clause. 

" In October of 1874, the Children's League was 
organized, and between two and three hundred names 
were enrolled as members. The interest manifested by 
the children has been wonderful and most encouraging ; 
and they still turn out bravely, every two weeks, ready 
with their songs and speeches to ' help the cause 
along,' putting to shame some of the grown-up folks, 
who, knowing their duty, do it not. 

" The Young People's League was organized Dec. 1, 
1874, and for some months was very prosperous ; but 
for some perplexities arose, and the meetings were dis- 
continued. They have not been resumed. 

" The work of the crusaders during the winter of 
1874-75 consisted principally in the organization and 
superintendence of these leagues. 



WOMEN RBFORMBBS. 385 

" The daily morning prayer-meetiugs were continued 
until Jan. 4, 1875, as also the weekly evening meetings, 
by one or another of the leagues ; but, the pastors of 
the churches having decided to hold a series of reli 
gious meetings, it was thought best to discontinue the 
temperance meetings, and they were not resumed till 
the 8th of March, when a meeting was called to deter- 
mine whether the ladies would work for the temper- 
ance fair to be held in Cincinnati the second week in 
April. Committees were appointed to take charge of 
the matter ; and the result was more than one hundred 
dollars' worth of articles to send to the fair, including 
donations from the younger leagues. 

" The suit of Mr. Dunn against the crusaders, for 
alleged trespass, was heard at the May term of court, 
before Judge Gray. 

" The jury felt obliged, by the rulings of the court, 
to decide in favor of Mr. Dunn, and awarded him five 
dollars damages. The counsel for the defence made a 
bill of exceptions to the rulings of Judge Gray, and 
appealed to the District Court. The case was not 
decided there, and was passed on to the Supreme Court, 
where it is now pending, and probably will not be 
decided for two or three years. 

" After several futile efforts to secure a place they 
could call their own, the crusaders were unexpectedly 
notified of a room that was vacant, and which they 
found would answer for the present. It was rented, 
cleaned, repaired, and furnished ; and the ladies took 
possession on the 8th of November. A prayer-meeting 
is held there every Wednesday afternoon, at half-past 
two o'clock, presided over by ladies in town ; and at 
the same place are held the monthly evening meetings, 
open to all. Want of time forbids the telling of much 



386 WOMEN OP THE CENTUIiT. 

that is interesting. The memorials, the petitions, the 
picnics, the boxes of clothing packed and sent to the 
need}', the conventions, and the great enthusiastic mass 
meetings, — all these, like fair white stones, have 
marked the toilsome way. 

" And if ever we are perplexed and hindered in the 
prosecution of our work, if our way is hedged up about 
us, and we know not which way to turn, we have but 
to stand still and listen ; and there shall come to us, 
floating down from the starry heights, the cheering 
words, ' Fear not, little flock : it is my Father's good 
pleasure to give you the kingdom.' " 

Proud of ray relationship to two of the most earnest 
workers, each prominent in their respective districts, I 
mention first Mrs. Susan Ann Gefford and Mrs. 
Mary Ann Woodbridge. They are cousins, and of 
Nantucket Quaker stock, the granddaughters of Peleg 
Mitchell, the grandfather of Maria : so that, while one 
cousin is helping young women to see the stars through 
the telescope, the other two are seeking to save young 
men from seeing them through the wine-cup. Mrs. 
Gifford labors in the East, and Mrs. Woodbridge in the 
West. Mrs. Gifford was born in Fall River, March 2, 
1826, and now resides in Worcester. Mrs. Wood- 
bridge resides in Ravenna, O. The maiden name of 
Mrs. Gifford was Mitchell : that of Mrs. Woodbridge 
was Brayton. Mrs. Gifford has been a vice-president 
of the Christian Woman's National Temperance Con- 
vention ever since it was organized. She called the 
first Woman's Temjterance Convention in Massachu- 
setts, and was its first president, and was followed by 
Mary A. Livermore. She has been president of the 
local society in Worcester ever since its establishment. 
Her personal work by speech and pen is immense ; 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 387 

and the same may be said of her cousin Mrs. Wood- 
bridge, — both of whom are often heard in yarioiis 
churches, preaching the gospel of temperance; the 
one being a Quaker, and the other a Congregationalist. 
Home duties as wife and mother are not neglected, the 
little ones being grown to helpers ; and yet public 
duties are faithfully performed. 

No temperance effort has been so powerful since the 
days of the Washingtonian movement, when John 
Hawkins went through the land, portraying the misery 
of the drunkard, and telling the touching story of his 
little daughter Hannah persuading him to let strong 
drink alone. As in the days of the war, many women 
become prominent who had until then been quietly 
serving God in their homes, so, by this sudden temper- 
ance awakening, many women were brought forward 
into places of notoriety who had never dreamed of 
fame before. Among these was the fearless, conse- 
crated orator whose record is thus sketched by a sym- 
pathizing friend : — 

"Frances E. Willard. — It has become a truism 
that men of genius have been endowed with their Fortu- 
natus' purse by a gifted mother ; it is gratifying to 
know that talent on the maternal side sometimes sur- 
vives in the daughter. 

" Miss Willard is a happy illustration of hereditary 
laws, having had a long line of ancestors who were 
intellectual athletes : to her mother, however, are dis- 
tinctly traceable the combined strength and grace of 
her iutellectunl and moral natures. 

" Mrs. Willard sprung from the traditional line of 
ministers and school-teachers that has given birth to 
the finest type of New England brain. She had the 



388 WOMEN OP THE CENTtTBY. 

hardy constitution and the common -school education of 
the Green Mountain girl ; better gift than either, an 
eager thirst for higher culture, that prompted her, after 
marriage with its added care of three little children, to 
take a course of study at Oberlin College. The old 
college town must have presented rare attractions to 
both parents, with their fine literary tastes and need 
of intellectual comradeship ; but both wants were sac- 
rificed to the household penates, and a country life 
resolved upon during the impressible years of the 
young family. 

" At Janesville, Wis., on a farm lonely, but lovely as 
blossoming nature and beautifying art could make it, 
Miss Willard passed the years from seven to sixteen. 
The secluded life, with schools and playmates shut 
out, threw her upon the boundless but so rarely 
tested resources of nature, supplemented always by the 
mother's unstinted store. To this early and intimate 
companionship with the dear mother of us all, who 
reveals the secret of her enduring cheerfulness and 
repose to the heart that beats in tune, we like to attrib- 
ute somewhat of the serenity, the hope, the courage, 
that characterize this child of hers. 

" The great out-door world, with its rocks and vines, 
taught the impressible girl morals and aesthetics ; 
while from books, the family talk, and the thousand 
devices of a wise and winning mother, the young feet 
learned the initial steps up the steep hill of knowledge. 
The rudiments of reading, and the immortal principles 
of Uberty, were learned together from ' The Slave's 
Friend.' The newspapers were devoured with the 
zest that country life gives to news from the great beat- 
ing world of humanity beyond its ken ; and very early 
the little literary coterie^ mother and children, made 




MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD, 

FIRST CORRESPONDING SECRETARY WOMAN'S NATIONAL CHRISTIAN 
TEMPERANCE UNION. 

Elected President in 1S79. 



"WOMEN RBFOBMBRS. 391 

their contributions to the press, — a genuine family 
newspaper, with its editor and entire corps of con- 
tributors from the household band. Indeed, tliis wise 
mother cultivated in every way the talent of her child, 
and shared fully in her joy when her first published 
article danced before her childish eyes from the col- 
umns of the Chicago press. At sixteen the young girl 
made her second literary venture, by competing suc- 
cessfully for the prize offered by the Illinois Agri- 
cultural Society for the best essay upon 'Country 
Homes.' 

" Soon after, the removal of the family to Evanston 
opened the way for an entrance into the new life of 
the schools. Graduated from the Woman's College at 
Evanston, Miss Willard opened her career as an 
educator by teaching a district school at Harlem, a 
Chicago suburb. Following this, she became precep- 
tress at Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, at the same time 
filling the post of secretary of the ' Woman's Centen- 
nial Association of the Methodist Church.' The next 
year she was elected professor of natural science in the 
Evanston College for Women, and rehnquished that 
chair for a position in the college at Pittsburg. Mean- 
while she wrote the story of her sister's life, published 
by the Harper Brothers, under the title of ' Nineteen 
Beautiful Years.' 

" In 1868 a benignant fortune, in the person of her 
friend Miss Kate M. Jackson, enabled Miss Willard 
to take a tour abroad. For two years and a half 
she travelled with her friend, visiting nearly every 
European country, making the tour of the Holy Land, 
treading with reverent feet the sacred soil of Palestine, 
iind propounding riddles to the Egyptian sphinx. This 
period was one of unremitting activity to her eager 



392 WOMEN OF TBDE CENTUBY. 

mind. Much of the time she studied nine hoars a day, 
mastering the French and Italian languages, and mak- 
ing great progress in the history of the fine arts. At 
Paris one solid year was devoted to study, — half that 
time at the College de France, where lectures were 
heard from the celebrated Laboulaye, Chasle, Legoure, 
and others. ' Harper's Magazine,' ' The Independent,' 
and the Chicago papers received articles from her 
pen ; but the choicest fruits of those sunny years, her 
journals, are yet to be culled. 

" In 1871 Miss Willard was elected president of 
Evanston College, the first institution of high grade 
under a woman's board of trustees, and with every 
department, including the financial, — genus vir I — 
successfully administered by women. 

" In 1873, when the Woman's College became an 
incorporated part of the North-western University, Miss 
Willard was elected dean of the college, and professor 
of aesthetics in the university. 

" In 1874, when it became impossible to carry out her 
cherished plan of government in the college, — a plan 
pursued with the best results during its separate exist- 
ence, — Miss Willard resigned both positions. 

" In October of the same year, the great temperance 
wave that swept over the land reached the prairies of 
the West, and found Miss Willard studying aesthetics in 
her quiet country home. She who had ' never given 
one hour of thought to the liquor-traffic,' who had 
' never seen the inside of a saloon,' and even drank 
wine freely when abroad, was so stirred by the simple 
Btory of women who cared for the tragedy in other 
women's lives enough to reach out a helping hand, 
that the whole current of her life was changed. 
Under a steady fire of opposition from friendly ranks, 



WOMEN REF0RMERi3. 393 

— the blows that tell most, — she enlisted in the tem- 
perance work. Since that time she has been an enthu- 
siastic and successful leader in the noble cause. As 
president of the Chicago Woman's Temperance Union, 
and corresponding secretary of the National Woman's 
Temperance Union, she has found a wide field for the 
exercise of her best gifts. Besides performing the duties 
of these positions, and doing much occasional work, 
chiefly in the line of temperance literature, she has 
been one of the ablest champions of the cause upon 
the lecture-platform. 

" Miss Willard seems to have been endowed with that 
sometimes fatal gift, a most varied talent. As an edu- 
cator, she had the rare power of arousing the enthu- 
siasm of her pupils, not only in intellectual pursuits, 
but in the attainment of noble character. Her con- 
stant aim was to secure an endogenous growth of mind 
and soul. Like Arnold of Rugby, she never lost faith 
in her pupils, and she won from them the love and the 
loyalty with which Harry East exclaims, ' He believes 
in a fellow I ' As writer and speaker, Miss Willard 
possesses a dangerous facihty, that alone prevents her 
achieving the highest results. Nature meant her for a 
journalist, but thwarted her own design by giving her 
the heart of a philanthropist. Ably as she writes, 
however, Miss Willard's rarest intellectual gift is a 
genius for conversation which stands unrivalled. Like 
Margaret Fuller's, her nature, peculiarly electrical, 
demands the receptive and responsive touch of otlier 
minds. 

" These intellectual gifts have been sujyplemented by 
rare graces of character. The brilliant mental endow- 
ments and the delicate moral traits blend, like the pris- 
matic hues, into a broad ray of white light radiant with 
the name of Frances E. Willard.'" 



394 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

As no order but that of convenience to the writer 
has been followed in respect to any names in this and 
many other chapters, there is nothing irvidious in 
causing the record of the President of the National 
Christian Woman's Temperance Union to appear after 
that of the Corresponding Secretary. 

Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer is that president. She 
is a native of Ohio, but was reared in Kentucky. Her 
grandfather was a graduate of Princeton College, and 
an oflficer in the war of 1812. She was instructed by 
her mother, and in a young ladies' seminary, receiving 
more than ordinary advantages. All tkrough the 
Rebellion, Mrs. Wittenmeyer was a zealous and faith- 
ful sanitary agent, having been appointed by the Legis- 
lature of Iowa, or as a worker with the Christian 
Commission, where she had the oversight of two hun- 
dred women, and where she developed her plan of 
special diet-kitchens to the great benefit of the soldiers- 
Miss C. A. Blodgett, herself an earnest laborer 
with an able pen as a reporter, and contributoi to peri- 
odicals, says further of Mrs. Wittenmeyer's labors : - 

" By invitation of the surgeon-general, she met the 
medical commission appointed to revise the speci.tl 
diet cooking of the army. The work of this commis- 
sion led to a thorough change in the hospital cookerj 
of the army, which was lifted to a grade of hygienio 
perfection above any thing ever before practised, and 
from which it will probably never again fall to the old 
standard. It is simple justice to add, what is a matter 
of record in the history of the United States Christian 
Commission, that these improvements in the diet- 
kitchens of the army were the means of saving thou- 
sands of valuable lives, and restoring noble men tr 
home and usefulness. 




MRS. ANNIE WITTENMEVER, 

FIRST PRESIDENT WOMAN'S NATIONAL CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 397 

" About the close of the war, Mrs. Wittenmeyer set 
in motion the idea of a home for soldiers' orphans, and 
became the founder of the institution bearing this 
name in Iowa. It is not generally known that this 
movement originated with the brave woman who had 
cared for the husbands and fathers, amid the dangers 
and Buffering of camp and hospital life. When the fact 
that such an institution was to be opened in Iowa 
became known, hundreds of soldiers and orphans be- 
came the wards of the State. By request of the Board 
of Managers of the Iowa Home, she went to Washing- 
ton City, and obtained from Secretary Stanton and 
other departments co-operating the beautiful barracks at 
Davenport, which cost the Government forty-six thou- 
sand dollars, and hospital supplies amounting to five or 
six thousand more, subject, however, to the approval of 
Congress, which was afterward secured through the 
efforts of Hon. Hiram Price of Iowa. That institution 
accommodated over five hundred children at one time. 
Branches were afterward organized, and the institution 
still maintains a flourishing existence. Mrs. Witten- 
meyer's active mind next conceived the idea that the 
vast amount of female talent and energy brought into 
activity by the philanthropy of war should be main- 
tained in Christian work in the churches. Bishop 
Simpson, always ready to co-operate in every move- 
ment promising greater usefulness for women, entered 
heartily into this plan ; and the Methodist Church 
estabKshed a Home Missionary Society of women, 
organized for the express purpose of ministering to the 
temporal and spiritual needs of the strangers and the 
poor. It was made a General Conference Society at 
the last session, and Mrs. Wittenmeyer was elected its 
corresponding secretary. In the last year over fifty 



398 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

thousand families have been visited under the auspices 
of this society. At the commencement of this new 
work, Mrs. Wittenmeyer removed from Iowa to Phila- 
delphia, and founded her paper, ' The Christian 
Woman,' an individual enterprise, wliich has proved 
exceptionally successful. She has more recently estab- 
lished a paper called ' The Christian Child,' which is 
rapidly winning its way to public favor. In addition 
to this heavy publishing work, Mrs. Wittenmeyer has 
carried the large society above described through all 
the difficulties incident to our general financial embar- 
rassment, travelling thousands of miles in its interest, 
and speaking before conferences in every State from 
Maine to California. 

" When, as an outgrowth of the crusade, the temper- 
ance women of America met in the first national con- 
vention, it was but natural that they should choose as 
a leader one whose name was already fragrant with the 
blessings of a thousand homes, and whose achievements 
in the past were not only a strength but a guaranty for 
the future. The record of the last year illustrates fully 
the wisdom of their choice. Twenty new States have 
been organized as auxiliary to the National Union. 
' The Woman's Temperance Union ' was founded with 
Mrs. Wittenmeyer as publisher, and a general impetus 
was given to the work all along the line. Mrs. Witten- 
meyer has labored without cessation, speaking, writ- 
ing, attending State conventions, of which forty-six 
have been held in the past year. She has always pre- 
sented the new society with an abihty of thought and a 
Christian earnestness of manner which have won hosts 
of friends for the cause. At the recent annual meeting 
at Cincinnati, she presided with characteristic ability, 
and was re-elected president for the centennial year by 
a unanimous vote." 



WOMEN REFOBMERS. 399 

"When the annual meeting was held in Newark, Oct. 
27, 1876, she was again unanimously elected president ; 
and the audience broke out in singing, 'Hallelujah, 
praise the Lord I ' The elections of that afternoon 
will long be pleasantly remembered as orderly, unani- 
mous, and accompanied with the singing of some hymn 
as a seal to the work. That day, for the first time, I 
saw and heard a Quaker commence the singing of a 
hymn, as Mrs. Gifford started the verse, — 

' We share our mutual woes, 

Our mutual burdens bear,' &c." 

Faknie W. Lbiter is another of those temperance- 
reformers. She was born in 1844, in Portsmouth, O., 
and was the third child in a family of seven : hence her 
youth was no stranger to care and labor, which she 
nobly exercised. She studied successfully in the public 
schools, the Hon. E. E. White being her teacher in 
the high-school course, and soon began to teach. She 
then studied at an academy in Granville, O., where she 
also taught geometry and algebra, thus meeting ex- 
penses. She graduated in the summer of 1864, and 
at once assumed the charge of the Xenia High School, 
and afterward of that in Dayton. Here she became 
acquainted with a Mrs. Bates, who proved a " mother 
in Israel," and helped her to greater consecration of 
Boul. She had been converted, she thought, at the 
early age of nine. In 1869 she married S. Brainard 
Leiter of Mansfield, O., where she has since resided. 
She gives this account of her work as a reformer : — 

" When the atmosphere of the crusade in its unac- 
countable and irresistible manner began to trespass 
upon so conservative a corj^oration as Mansfield, I was 



400 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

immediately trying to persuade myself that this work 
had no possible connection with a promise I had 
solemnly made. After some eight or ten days of con- 
flict, and earnest prayer that unmistakable evidence 
might be granted me as to duty in this matter, the 
answer came. 

" The 10th of March, 1874, inaugurated our street 
work. At two o'clock, p.m., four hundred women, 
four abreast, led by our president, Mrs. Catherine S. 
Reed, and myself, marched down Main Street, visiting 
several saloons, when we were compelled to hold ser- 
vices upon the sidewalk, under circumstances where 
even the winds seemingly conspired with the Evil One 
in scoflfing at this effort. 

" At the fifth place, some twenty only of our number 
were permitted to enter an underground apartment, as 
it was thronged with men and boys who had collected 
there in order to ' see the ^sights.* 

" The great solemnity pervading the ranks of the 
crusaders, over against the dark, damp underground 
retreat, redolent with the fumes of whiskey and beer, 
made doubly hideous by the jeers and shrieks of those 
who had rallied around the proprietors, was, to one who 
had never before entered such a place, the very embodi- 
ment of all that was evil. Immediately the full import 
of the surroundings seized upon my soul ; and the ft-ar 
that this might be the last opportunity impelled me to 
step upon a chair, and attempt to address them. 

" So long as reason remains, I shall never lose the 
impression made by that multitude of upturned faces, 
bearing unmistakable evidences of the hold of the 
tempter upon them, 

" The intensity of my soul, which was stirred to its 
uttermost, could only find utterance in prayer. 



"WOMEN BBFORMBRS. 401 

*' That hour brought answer to my prayer, since which 
time I have never for one moment questioned my duty 
in this great matter. 

" The past two years have meant more to my spirit- 
ual growth than all of the preceding, since I took upon 
myself the name of Christ's follower. I shall never 
cease to be grateful to my mother, whose unquestion- 
able purpose in life so early rooted my belief in the word 
of Q^od ; for a nature so characteristically positive in 
its demand might have led to a Christian experience 
clouded with doubts and perplexities, had my conver- 
sion been deferred until maturer years. 

" The temperance cause is a work that I dare not 
resist. The force of an intense interest^ with which 
nature has kindly endowed me, I lay at the feet of my 
Master, believing that even this qualification can be 
consecrated in the great effort of saving perishing 
souls." 

Mrs. McCabe bears the following testimony : — 

" When Ohio was threatened with a license clause in 
her new constitution, and her alarmed Christian citi- 
zens, men and women, poured down upon the Con- 
stitutional Convention then sitting in Cincinnati, to 
protest, one of the most noticeable women in that 
grand temperance convention was Mrs. Fannie W. 
Leiter of Mansfield. 

" Entering a vacated committee-room, the writer saw 
standing alone, a small lady, delicate, graceful, and 
blonde, her intellectual headend light hazel eyes bend- 
ing intently over a convention manuscript which her 
critical pen was fitting for the public ear. At the close 
of that marvellous convention, in which the piety, the 



402 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

zeal, and the energy, as well as the refinement, of Ohio's 
women, were concentrated on the subject of intemper- 
ance, she made a speech from the platform, which for 
elevation of thought, gentle enthusiasm. Christian 
trust, beauty and chastity of diction, had not been ex- 
celled. The power of a strong will and trained intel- 
lect in a fragile form rose on the convention, a star of 
promise, in this new and wonderful era of woman, as 
related to a great reform. 

*'At the Convention which followed soon after in 
Springfield, she served with distinguished eflficiency as 
secretary, and was then elected permanent secretary of 
the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Ohio. 
In this capacity, her counsels and suggestions, her 
appropriate and prompt action, have largely contrib- 
uted to the strength, efficiency, and permanency of our 
organization. In addition to this she has borne a very 
large share of the temperance and missionary work in 
her own city, at the same time meeting all the duties 
devolving upon her as wife, mother, and friend. 

" Mrs. Leiter has a carefully and exactly trained in- 
tellect, a finely cultivated taste, with manners at once 
simple and dignified. Her mind is awake and alive to 
the varied interests of the time ; and, though cautious, 
she holds regarding them positive opinions, and acts 
decidedly. As a Christian woman she moves on the 
higher planes, loving and living in the noblest things. 
Her culture, her activity, her fine Christian spirit, 
redeemed from all narrowness, render this still youth- 
ful lady one of the most promising of the noble Chris- 
tian women that Ohio igonsecrates to her people's 
reform." 

Harriet Calista McCabe kindly assists the writer 
by the following autobiographical sketch : — 




MRS. DR. McCABE. 



WOMEN EEFORMEKS. 405 

"I was born in the year 1827 at Sidney Plains, Dela- 
ware County, N.Y. Arvine and Eliza Clarke were my 
parents. My home was located on a grassy upland ; 
the southern horizon bounded by a lofty mountain wall 
dividing the valleys of the Delaware and Susquehan- 
na. The eastern and western outlook, blue mountain 
distances ; the northern, a gap in the ranges, where the 
Chenango makes confluence with the Susquehanna; 
and between were the little village, wide plain, tortu- 
ous river, and groves of intermingled chestnut and 
evergreen. 

" Sometimes in the village school, oftener under a 
private teacher at home, instructed in the ordinary 
lessons of childhood, to which drawing and French 
were added, almost a hermit with the wild azaleas, 
arbutus, ericas, ferns, and evergreens, under the vigi- 
lant eye of a Connecticut mother whose steps were all 
ordered by systems, I reached my twelfth year, and, 
according to the expressed views of a family friend, 
was ' as practical as a Yankee, and dreamy as a 
Hindoo.' 

" The somewhat stern and thoughtful character of 
the Presbyterian Church tempered the exuberance of 
my spirits ; but, upon my father's conversion, the influ- 
ence which the. memory of Whitefield, a frequent 
guest when in America of his mother's family, had 
upon him, moved him to invite the Methodist itinerant 
to our home. Our acquaintance in that direction 
became extensive ; and seldom a day passed, without 
the hands of these earnest men, either arriving or 
departing, being laid in benediction on my head. 

'* When I was twelve years of age, my father changed 
his residence to Elmira, N.Y., where I continued my 
studies ; and, at the age of sixteen, became a member 



406 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

of the Methodist Church. Not long after, serious 
reverses came upon my father, which so roused my 
sympathies, and impressed me with the instability of 
earthly things, that I resolved to seek earnestly some 
surer ground for hope and rest, and be more than a mere 
nominal Christian. At this crisis a devoted Presby- 
terian clergyman, with a introductory letter, paid my 
father a brief visit. When leaving, he sent for me, 
and addressing me with great solemnity said, ' The 
world is dying ; thy Saviour hath need of thee : wilt 
thou give thyself to him ? ' I have neither seen noi 
heard of that humble servant of God since, but shall 
ever believe he was sent with a message to aid me in 
making at once a complete decision to be altogether a 
Christian. Then I accepted the world as a place of 
labor and discipline, and true life, a ministration of love 
through sacrifice, even as the Lord Jesus has set forth. 
*' There was a little remnant of fortune among the 
lofty Alleghanies, in mills and mountains of pine. 
Here for a time we established our home. I was twen- 
ty years of age, my spirit full of exceeding peace, and, 
with my new views of life, never lonely. I gave time 
to sketching and botany, favorite studies, and went 
among the people of the valley. I found a Christian 
man who gathered the children into a Sunday school, 
and let me help him. They were not poor, but stupid 
and ignorant. My father twice a week gathered, in 
our dining-room, the men from the mills for prayer ; 
and many became truly pious. On a green island 
where little and big pine creeks mingle their crystal 
tides, a meeting was held : the people were converted 
far and near; and the gambling, drinking, and the 
sabbath desecration ended, a little church was built, 
and the valleys generally reformed. 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 407 

'' Soon after, I was solicited to take the position of 
preceptress at Dickinson Seminary, Williamsport, Penn. . 
Never having contemplated teaching, and inexperienced, 
I declined, but accepted on being solicited again some 
months after. The young ladies' department was now 
almost wholly under my care ; and the desire to inspire 
them to love and seek the noblest things quite ab- 
sorbed me. I also taught drawing and French chiefly, 
which made my life a very busy one. Associated with 
Dr. (now Bishop) Bowman, I spent seven years at the 
seminary, at the end of which, in 1867, I was married 
to Rev. Dr. McCabe, professor of philosophy in O. W. 
University, Delevan, O., at which place I have since 
resided. 

" The rising of the Woman's Foreign Missionary 
Society, Hke a star above woman's horizon, seemed to 
me, as I considered, to be full of meaning and promise, 
and engaged my active interest at once. In the redemp- 
tion of the surplus energy of Christian women for the 
advancement of the world, and in the new life it has 
given to mission work abroad, it transcends all my 
early auguries of its power and necessity, as a new 
factor in the arena of redemptive effort. It was a 
preparatory step to the wider and more general home 
work inaugurated by and for women, known as the 
crusade or temperance work. 

" Every revival and reform has, if genuine, its life 
first in individual souls. My own experience before 
the approach of the temperance crusade was similar 
to that of others. There came to me much sorrow in 
the depth of my spirit, for the lost condition, spiritual- 
ly, of the thronging men I met as I passed along the 
streets. The Church seemed powerless to arrest or 
arouse theii consciences. God seemed Hke an ever- 



408 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

brooding presence, desiring, pleading for help, for instru- 
ments, ' against the mighty.' The Forty-sixth Psalm 
was given to me, with the illumination, that the storms 
and floods there mentioned indicate the strivings and 
outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the effect of which ia 
to make glad with abounding righteousness the living 
Church. This experience and promise I claim for that 
phase of the temperance reform which began in '74, 
which is resulting in so much and varied good. I paid 
little attention to the coming ' crusade,' being other- 
wise much absorbed. I did not attend the first meet 
ing held in our city by Dr. Lewis. On going the next 
day, I was amazed to find our largest church crowded 
with citizens. Peculiar solemnity rested upon the 
assembly. A minister rose, and, saying God seemed 
specially to be calling women, requested me to pray. 
Greatly surprised, and timid at the presence of the 
crowd, as I knelt, no words were given me, but those of 
the Psalm above mentioned. That day the crusade 
was inaugurated in Delevan, a thing I supposed to be 
impossible. Immediately after the morning meeting, I 
was sent with others to the first convention of * cru- 
saders ' assembled at Columbus. Here I first heard, as 
the hymn of the crusade, ' Nearer, my God, to thee,' 
and saw the first time Mrs. Thompson of Hillsboro', 
and ' Mother Stewart,' with Dr. Dio Lewis, and those 
women who had been praying in saloons the last two 
months. I heard many of those women speak in the 
City Hall, — women who had never before spoken in 
public. They spoke with great modesty and without 
fear, of God's help in the saloons ; and some of them, 
of the inner life and peace which had come to them 
through this wonderful work. 

^' At that convention a bureau of correspondence 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 409 

was made for the extension of work, in which I was 
appointed to share. From that time a large portion of 
my time has been devoted to this solemn and interest- 
ing work for men. Next to the care of my household 
and the education of my children, it is my work. With 
some regret I renounced for this, my favorite pursuits, 
and find I have gained a hundred-fold above what I 
have given. Without intellectual dwarfing, it has en- 
larged my spiritual nature. God has given me to see 
that there is no material in the universe so rich, and 
capable of being moulded into forms so glorious, as 
humanity. Work on this material yields returns im- 
measurably grander and far more enduring than work 
on marble or canvas. Thus to be enlightened, thus to 
be convinced, I count a new accession of mental riches 
and of spirit joy and rest, than which nothing better 
could now be given me, and to which is added the assur- 
ance that a dispensation equally rich and restful shall 
be given me when there is no more for me to do, and 
may be something still to suffer. 

" I believe the most controlling element of my life 
has been a singular trust in a Divine Being. Early in 
my childhood I believed, that, in answer to my request, I 
was extricated from my childish difficulties. This con- 
fidence has grown with my growth, and strengthened 
with my strength. It has been sunshine to my life, 
and has touched all, even the smallest matters, as sun- 
liglit touches all below, small and great. It has been 
the one bird which has attracted thousands more, and 
fiUed the house of my pilgrimage with their songs. It 
has been my strength in the annoyances of a day, and 
the scenes which revolutionize destiny , and still makes 
the path of Ufe glow with ever-increasing brightness. 

'* With a gratitude I have no words l-> express, and 



410 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

with unutterable desire, that all whom God hath made 
may hear and understand, I here record how perfectly 
God does for his creature whatever, temporal or spirit- 
ual, that creature commits to his trust. He may take 
time ; but any thing you give to him to do for you, he 
•will perfectly do^ and never fails. 

" I could give no true sketch of my hfe without nam- 
ing the element which has controlled and given it shape. 
What is it, that I, as to my person, have lived here or 
there, or done this or that ? It is the journeys the soul 
has made, the altars it has built, and the inscriptions it 
has written thereon, which constitute a life." 

Mrs. Leiter thus bears testimony to her friend's 
worth : — 

" At the Columbus Convention to which Mrs. Mc- 
Cabe has referred, held in the earlier days of the crusade 
work, she was appointed chairman of the committee to 
whom was intrusted the work of State organization. 
Previous labors in the missionary field had developed 
unusual abiUty on her part as an organizer. 

" The mass convention held in Cincinnati in April, 
1874, for the purpose of bringing anti-licence interest 
to bear upon the Constitutional Convention then in 
session in that city, added to the number of the original 
committee, authorizing the same to call a convention at 
the earliest convenience, in order to carry out plans 
proposed by the committee. In pursuance of this, the 
delegated assembly which met in Springfield the follow- 
ing June completed the State organization by adopting 
the constitution and by-laws as presented by her, under 
which were elected a president, secretary, treasurer, 
and twenty Wee-presidents representing the various 
congressionfi districts of the State. 



WOMEN BEFORMEES. 411 

" Although circumstances compelled her absence on 
this occasion, by the unanimous and hearty vote of the 
convention she was elected president, which office she 
to-day fills, closing the second year. 

" Since the work began, her untiring energy has 
promptly and faithfully met the suggestions of the 
hour. 

" Whether at her secretary, meeting the multitude 
of demands through correspondence incumbent on this 
office, writing memorials, issuing calls for days of fast- 
ing and prayer, or presiding in convention requiring 
and testing the ability, nerve, and endurance of more 
masculine temperaments, she has proved herself equal 
to the most trying emergency, without exhausting her 
resources, or seriously trespassing upon the interests of 
a family blest with a devoted wife and mother. 

" After these months of trial, under the depressing 
circumstances of reaction in the cause, the united voice 
of temperance workers proclaims her the ' fittest of the 
fit ' for the post she has occupied, and the duties she 
has met, 

'* A Christian character above reproach, whose name 
is a synonyme for purity and truth, and wnose presence 
is a token of the spirit that dwells in and through her 
being, she claims the love and esteem of all co-laborers. 

" Possessed of a ' charity that is tried and suffereth 
long,' the many annoyances that naturally arise through 
human agencies, under her influence and direction have 
dwindled into a ' creation of the brain.' 

" When this temperance work has become a completed 
historic record, first in the ranks of those who stepped 
forward at the call of the Master, will be found the 
name of one whose single-hearted trust, and faith sub- 
lime in its simplicity, aided in anchoring the cause in 



412 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

the hearts of the people, and directing the hopes of 
Christian women to the God of the universe, who con- 
trols the affairs of men." 

A friend in the West kindly furnishes the follow- 
ing : — 

" Eliza Jane Thoaepson is the only daughter of 
the late Ex-Gov. Trimble of Ohio, and was born in 
Hillsboro', Highland County, of the same State, Aug. 
24, 1816. 

" Her father was a man of strict integrity of char- 
acter, both in private and political life. His personal 
reminiscences, even at the advanced age of eighty, 
when the writer knew him best, indicated a very vig- 
orous intellect, and were treasured by all, not only on 
account of their individual interest, but as relating to 
the pioneer history of Ohio. 

" Her mother was exceedingly lovely and amiable, 
and, through a long life of usefulness and unostentatious 
piety, comforted and cheered those around her. She 
was a ' Friend ' by education ; and the soothing influ- 
ence of that belief told upon her whole life, saving 
her from the fretfulness of declining years ; and with 
quiet, patient step, she drew near to the * land of rest.' 
Prom her parents, Mrs. Thompson received a thor- 
oughly practical, useful, and religious education ; a 
rigid but loving discipline was exercised ; and the 
lesson of life was combined with the recreations of 
childhood. 

" She early imbibed from her father a sympathy for 
' total abstinence,' and attended with him the first 
National Temperance Convention held in New York 
to which he was a State delegate. 




MRS. ELTZA J. THOMPSON, 

LEADER OF THE FIRST CRUSADE BAND, 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 415 

**Mr8. Thompson was deeply impressed in early 
childhood with the earnest piety of her grandmother, 
Mrs. Jane Trimble ; and, at the age of eleven years, 
connected herself with the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and, through many vicissitudes, has clung with great 
tenacity and affection to the simple faith of the Wes- 
leys ; and, in all the sorrows and disappointments of 
life, her heart has found refuge in the ' Rock of 
Ages.' 

" In 1837 she was married to Mr. J. H. Thompson, 
of Harrodsburg, Ky. They lived, for several years, in 
Cincinnati, O., where Mr. Thompson practised law ; 
but, in the spring of 1842, found it to their interest to 
remove to Hillsboro', her chUdhood's home, where she 
has since resided. 

" A family of eight children claimed a large place in 
Mrs. Thompson's heart and life ; and for many years 
she lived alone for the domestic and social circles, ever 
heartily responding to religious and benevolent calls. 

" Maternal happiness, alas I is blended with maternal 
cares and afflictions ; and, as years passed away, the 
shadows of many graves lay behind her. A lovely 
daughter of nineteen was called to the enjoyment of 
the ' pure in heart,' in the summer of 1859 ; and five 
years later her eldest born and gifted son closed a 
life of touching vicissitudes upon the quiet banks of 
the Susquehanna. The shock was doubly great to the 
mother heart. The mountains separated her from the 
death-scene ; but loving ones were present to treasure 
and carry back his dying words, — 

*' ' In the cross of Christ I glory, 

Towering o'er the wrecks of time; 
All the light of sacred story 

Gathers round its head sublime. * 



416 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

" Mrs. Thompson's parents, to whom she gave many 
years of devoted attention in their declining days, 
passed away about six years ago ; since which time her 
surviving children, having arrived at years of maturity, 
have sought their own interests in life. 

"In December of 1873, the memorable crusade 
against intemperance commenced in Ohio, in which 
Mrs. Thompson took an active part, as will be seen 
from the report. In the cause of temperance she still 
zealously works, and feels the deepest interest. When 
the crusade began, her surrounding circumstances 
aflforded leisure and opportunity for devoting herself 
more exclusively to a cause in which her heart had 
always been deeply interested ; and she entered it as a 
work for God, relying solely upon his strength for 
success. 

" The press naturally commented, in various ways, 
upon the unusual temperance movement of 1873 ; and, 
with the unlimited freedom of this powerful engine, 
attributed various motives to the workers in it. A 
wise writer, however, says, ' Men cannot print tones, 
glances, sighs, or tears ; the heart always suffers by 
being translated into speech." Shakspeare tells us, 
through Wolsey, — 

" ♦ If we shall stand still 
In fear our motion will be mocked, or carped at, 
We should take root here where we sit.' 

" Although the excessive enthusiasm at first mani- 
fested in this temperance work has abated, yet Mrs. 
Thompson, with her co-workers, believes that the in- 
terest is more profound, the work more thorough, and 
good results more certain, than at i»ny time before. 
The highest authority declares, ' When the enemy 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 417 

shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall 
lift up a standard against him.' " 

Mrs. Rouse. — Mrs. Bolton of Cleveland, O., kindly 
furnishes the following : — 

" Great emergencies develop great characters. This 
was strikingly true in our late civil war. Through a 
baptism of blood, the nation learned a self-sacrificing 
generosity and heroism, the memory of which is blessed. 
Men gave life. Women gave what was dearer than 
life, — their husbands, brothers, and sons. And this was 
not enough. When the realities of war were upon us, 
woman's hand and heart and voice and strength were 
all needed and devotedly given. 

" Among the many who were ready when the hour 
came, was Mrs. Benjamin Rouse of Cleveland, O. She 
was born in Salem, Mass., Oct. 30, 1800 ; a New Eng- 
land girl, with all their energy and spirit ; a descendant 
of Oliver Cromwell, with much of his invincible will, 
combined with a manner retiring and gentle ; with 
wonderful executive ability, enabling her to preside 
at meetings, speak before audiences if need be, and 
carry forward any plans her conscience approved. She 
was converted at the early age of ten ; was a Presby- 
terian till her marriage with Mr. Rouse in 1821, when 
she adopted her liusband's form of belief, and, moving 
to Cleveland, they were the first Baptists in the city. 
She is the mother of eight children, four of whom are 
now living. One was the founder of a mission school, 
for years its superintendent, its life and strength ; now 
it is a flourishing church. Another, an only daughter, 
has been for years identified with the orphan asylum 
and the ' Bethel,' to whose husband, Loren Prentis, 



418 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

this latter excellent institution owes its founding and 
growth. 

" Her family cares never kept her from the deepest 
interest in every thing that lifted humanity. A great 
worker in her church, the friend of strangers, president 
of the orphan asylimi from its incipiency, still holding 
that office at seventy-six years of age, she is a living 
refutation of the idea that being the mother of a family 
absolves one from all duties to the world outside. 

" She is remarkably well read, intelligent upon every 
subject, and a charming conversationalist. She is 
small and rather delicate in organization. 

" The secretary of the Northern Ohio Aid Society, 
Mary Clark Brayton, a young lady of the highest 
social position and culture, who gave unceasing service 
for over five years to the soldiers in hospitals and at 
the front ; who wrote weekly for the press of the city 
all the needs and results of the work, and thousands of 
letters to anxious wives and mothers ; who ministered 
often till midnight to the destitute, maimed, and dying 
soldiers ; whose name, with that of Ellen Terry the 
tieasurer, Ohio will never forget, — says in her book, 
' Our Acre and its Harvest,' ' Mrs. Rouse, the presi- 
dent of our society, stepped from her life of unobtru- 
sive charities, visited families and villages, and, by 
personal explanation and appeal, secured the hearty 
and enthusiastic support of all who listened to her 
arguments.' 

" Those days of making bandages, picking lint, cutting 
and making clothing, packing supplies for the sick and 
wounded, all done so rapidly with eager hands and ach- 
ing hearts, are fresh in the memory of all. Mrs. Rouse, 
at the request of Gen. Rosecraus, accompanied the first 
shipment of articles to Wheeling, Va., and helped in 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 419 

fitting up the hospitals for five hundred sick meu who 
had just passed through Cleveland. Shortly after the 
battle at Fort Donelson, with two hundred and sixty 
boxes furnished by the patriotic women of Northern 
Ohio, she started for Louisville, there gained access to 
the crowded hospitals, and gave her personal attention 
to the sufferers. 

"After the battle of Perryville, Ky., when, for some 
unknown reason, stores needed were not at hand, and 
great suffering thereby ensued, the aid society at once 
sent eight hundred sets of hospital clothing, four hun- 
dred bed-sacks, &c. Mrs. Rouse, with the secretary, 
took a trunk stored with oysters and other needed 
things, and went immediately to the scene of hard- 
ship. 

" When the Chicago Fair was in progress, both has- 
tened thither, and returning with enthusiastic hearts 
undertook a like enterprise, the Sanitary Fair of North- 
ern Ohio, — work to which many women in this coun- 
try owed premature deaths, — and made it a com- 
plete success, clearing nearly $100,000 for the soldiers. 
For a territory so small as this society covered, prob- 
ably not one in the whole country was so efficient. In 
five years it had collected and disbursed through its 
officers 1130,400 in cash, and $1,003,000 in stores. 

" A soldiers' home was opened in Cleveland, first in 
the depot for some two years, which afforded relief to 
over 56,000 registered inmates ; and here Mrs. Rouse 
with others gave daily personal attention, directing its 
management minutely. In connection with this was 
an employment office which did grand service, and a 
pension office where the secretary and treasurer acted 
daily as unpaid clerks. Here often and often hundreds 
of hungry soldiers were fed, as they passed through the 



420 WOMKN OF THE CENTURY. 

city. Now there were 700 Wisconsin boys, now 1,040 
from Michigan, and as many more from various sec- 
tions. At one time, weary and faint, with good Mrs. 
Rouse at the head, and she was always present, they 
prepared repast for 1,350 on a hot July night, the train 
coming in at two o'clock in the morning. * Her energy 
and activity,' says Miss Brayton, ' notwithstanding her 
years and feeble health (she was now over sixty years 
old), put to the blush many who were younger and 
more robust.' Sitting now in the home of her daugh- 
ter, where love and commendable pride of the noble 
mother have furnished delightful apartments, with her 
books about her, welcoming with cordial smiles old 
friends and new, rich in the memories of a full, blessed 
life, she waits her summons to join her husband, recently 
gone from her. In the great future, not only her 
children, but a host of orphans and soldiers, and the 
poor in this world's goods, will rise up and call her 
blessed.'' 

Says Mrs. Wittenmeyer, in her History, after giving 
an account of the temperance work in Brooklyn, N. Y., 
under the leadership of Mrs. Mary Coffin Johnson : " In 
the year 1876, Mrs. Mary C. Johnson, the efficient and 
talented President of the Brooklyn Union, visited Great 
Britain and Ireland, and spent six months in successful 
work in drawing-room and public meetings. Her efforts 
to help forward the cause of gospel temperance were 
richly blessed. She addressed during her absence one 
hundred and twenty-one audiences, and conducted forty- 
one prayer meetings. Her work was chiefly among the 
upper classes, and her drawing-room and lawn meetings 
were attended largely by the nobility. Mrs. Johnson, 
who is a cultured Christian lady, was received every 
where with great attention, and the American women 




MR^. MARY C. JOHNSON, 

FIRST RECORDING SECRETARY WOMAN'S NATIONAL CHRISTIAN 
TEMPERANCE UNION 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 423 

have reason to be proud of her record abroad, and th** 
National Union that one of her ofl&cera so ably repre- 
sented her in the higher circles of Great Britain." 

Sarah K. Bolton, who has so kindly aided in 
securing sketches of some of the prominent crusaders 
for this book, is herself a literary woman, and earnestly 
engaged in reforms. She has given voice and pen to 
the temperance work, has addressed many audiences 
with great success, and has published one of the most 
interesting volumes of the day, " The Present Prob- 
lem," in which the crusade is faithfully portrayed, and 
high moral ground is taken in reference to purity of 
life in man as well as woman. Mrs. Bolton resides in 
Cleveland, O. 

Catherine S. Reed is one of the brave women of 
the century in respect to temperance work. She has 
recently removed from Mansfield, O., to Columbus, 
Neb. She was formerly a high-school teacher, and 
with her fine culture was able to exert a wide and 
beneficent influence. When she left for the farthei 
West, a band of ladies belonging to the Temperance 
League gave the family a pleasant surprise. After a 
bounteous repast, a hymn, and prayer, a resolution of 
regret was read, and very appropriately answered by 
Mrs. Reed. In that written testimonial, signed by 
twenty-six women, was expressed " our appreciation of 
her faithful labors for the good of mankind, her abiding 
hope, and her strong faith which has so often strength- 
ened ours, and her very efiicient leadership in the 
work of temperance. . . . One who has been so thor- 
oughly identified with all our educational, social, and 
religious interests cannot but be widely missed." 

HuLDAH EsTES is thus mentioned in the " Advance 



424 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Guard," the temperance sheet ably edited by Mrs. 
Emma MoUoy : — 

" It is with the sincerest regret that we record the 
death of Mrs. Huldah Estes, one of our noblest tem- 
perance workers, who passed from earth to her better 
home, Aug. 6, 1875. Mrs. Estes was born in Vermont, 
being the daughter of Nathan C. Hoag, a distinguished 
minister of the Society of Friends, and a grand-daugh- 
ter of Joseph Hoag, an eloquent divine, considerably 
known outside of his church by his ' Vision,' which 
was extensively circulated at the beginning of the late 
war, and so remarkably fulfilled in the event thereof. 

" Mrs. Estes early manifested a strong literary taste ; 
and while yet a mere girl she entered upon her voca- 
tion as a teacher, which she so admirably filled until 
within a few years of her death. Next to the mother, 
a loving, wise teacher fills the warmest place in one's 
heart ; and scattered over the world is many a loving 
pupil who never thinks of Mother Estes excejt with 
a quickened heart-throb, and a pulsation of pain will 
follow this announcement of her death. In 1847 she 
came to Indiana to take the position of principal of the 
female department of the ' Friends' Boarding-School ' 
at Richmond, now known as Earlham College, and then 
just opened ; Lewis A. Estes, afterward her husband, 
being the male principal. All active, philanthropic, 
and Christian enterprises met with her sympathy and 
encouragement, and, as far as her health would permit, 
her hearty co-operation. An earnest abolitionist when 
the curse of slavery seemed as immovable as the eternal 
hills, her faith was no less strong in the ultimate tri- 
amph of the cause of temperance. 

" When the crusade movement burst upon Ohio, she 




MRS. SARAH KNOWLES BOLTON, 

FIRST ASSISTANT CORRESPONDING SECRETARY WOMAN'S NATIONAL 
CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION. 



WOMEN REF0RMBB8. 427 

was living at Wilmington, and was among the first of 
the noble band of crusaders to march upon the enemy's 
forces. 

" We all remember her brave, strong, and earnest 
words that so thrilled the late State Convention at 
Indianapolis. Sister Ejstes was a tower of strength 
unto the weak, a noble wife and mother, and that rarest 
thing on earth, — a pure, unselfish Christian. Her life 
was a beautiful poem, which can only be read by the 
pure light of eternity. While our hearts are rent with 
sorrow at our loss, let us remember that she 

' Has passed through glory's morning gate, 
And walks in Paradise. ' ' ' 

Mrs. Mary T. Burt was President of the Women's 
Christian Temperance Union in Auburn, N. Y., in 1875, 
and subsequently removing from Auburn to Brooklyn, 
she became publisher of the temperance organ " Our 
Union," now in charge of Miss Esther Pfgh, and 
issued from the Bible House, New York city. 

Emma Mollot must surely be remembered. The 
brave little woman has been a faithful and successful 
temperance worker, and is still in the field as lecturer 
and writer. As an editor she will be mentioned again. 
Caroline A. Soule has lectured upon temperance. 
And Phbbe A. Hanaford has been identified with 
the temperance cause for many years. She signed the 
pfedge when eight years of age, was chaplain and treas- 
urer of the Daughters of Temperance when eighteen ; 
was Worthy Chief several times in subordinate Lodges 
of Good Templars, Chaplain of the Grand Worthy 
Lodge of Massachusetts one year, and a member of the 
Right Worthy Lodge in 1867. She assisted in prepar- 



428 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

ing the Degree Ritual, and wrote all but one of the 
hymns in the ritual now used among Good Templars" 
for the dedication of a hall, or the burial of a member. 
But the woman of the East who is most noted in tem- 
perance work among the Good Templars is Amanda 
Lane. " The Temperance Album " of Boston thus 
refers to her : — 

" For many years Sister Lane has been prominently 
identified with the temperance reform ; and the elo- 
quent earnestness of her appeals in the lodge-room 
and on the public platform have been more widely 
recognized, and have brought her into more promi- 
nence, than any woman publicly identified with the 
cause in New England. More than fifteen years ago 
she occupied a prominent position in a division of the 
Sons of Temperance, then existing at her home in 
Gloucester. In 1862, when Good Templary, with its 
broad basis of the perfect equality of the sexes, began 
to assume some prominence in this State, her self- 
reliance and independence led her to unite with sev- 
eral friends in the formation of Fraternity Lodge of 
Gloucester, which has always held rank with the first 
lodges in the State. She was initiated into the Order 
as a charter member of that lodge, at its institution on 
the 22d of May, 1862, and was its first Worthy Vice- 
Templar. In recognition of her dignity, fidelity, and 
administrative ability in that position, she was called to 
the chair of the Worthy Chief Templar for the second 
quarter ; and she has subsequently again filled the chair 
of Worthy Vice-Templar, Secretary, and other offices. 
She was not made a member of the Grand Lodge, 
although eligible three years previous, until the seventh 
annual session, held in this city in February, 1865. 
The tiext day after she had assumed the obligation of 




MRS. MARY T. BURT, 

Corresponding secretary woman's national christian 
temperance union. 



WOMEN EEF0EMBR8. 431 

the Grand Lodge Degree, she was chosen to the posi- 
tion of Grand Worthy Councillor, receiving seventy- 
six out of one hundred and four votes. In 1866 and 
L874 she was a member of the committee appointed to 
receive the Right Worthy Grand Lodge, in behalf of 
the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts ; and at both these 
sessions she was a delegate to that supreme body. She 
was made a member of the Right Worthy Grand Lodge 
at the session of 1866, and at that session she was 
chosen Right Worthy Grand Vice-Templar, receiving 
forty-nine out of the fifty-one votes cast. At this ses- 
sion she also served on the Committee on Constitu- 
tions, and at the next session at Detroit, in 1867,. on the 
Committee on the State of the Order, two of the most 
important committees of that body. At the last-men- 
tioned session she was unanimously re-elected to the 
position of Right Worthy Grand Vice-Templar. She 
was also present at the sessions of 1868, 1869, and 
1874 ; and of her efficient aid at the latter session it is 
not necessary to speak. At Bloomington, 111., at the 
session of 1875, she was again elected to the office of 
Right Worthy Grand Vice-Templar, and was chosen 
by the New England delegation to speak for New 
England at the receptive meeting. No member of the 
Right Worthy Grana Lodge receives a more cordial 
greeting from the prominent members of the Order, 
representing all sections of the country, and none com- 
mands higher respect, than Sister Lane. Space forbids 
a detail of tlie many ways she has served the Good 
Templars of Massachusetts. 

" At the Worcester session in 1873, she was elected 
Grand Worthy Secretary, and performed its duties 
with such promptness, fidelity, and executive ability, 
that the Good Templars of Massachusetts honored 



432 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

themselves by the indorsement of a faithful officer 
with her unanimous re-election in 1874 and 1875. 

" Sister Lane has been for many years a prominent 
member of the Universalist denomination, and has rep- 
resented her Church and State in its local and national 
conventions. When the Woman's Centenary Asso- 
ciation was organized at Philadelphia in 1871, she was 
chosen Recording Secretary, and subsequently was 
made Vice-President in charge of the work in Massa- 
chusetts, a position she held until the pressure of othei 
duties compelled her to resign. 

" She has avoided rather than courted public life ; but 
her graceful eloquence, purity of thought, and earnest 
devotion to any moral or Christian service, secure her 
constant invitations to the platform. The Order of 
Good Templars, however, should congratulate itself 
that she has wisely decided to give her public efforts 
almost exclusively in its interest." 

Miss Lane was married in 1876 to Solomon F. Root, 
and resides in Hinsdale, Mass. 

Having devoted so much space to the workers in the 
anti-slavery, temperance, and suffrage reforms, there is 
little room to tell of the peace reform, with JuUA 
Ward Howe crossing the ocean to preach the gospe) 
of peace in England, and inaugurating Mothers' Day, 
on each June 2, for the world, whereon mothers will 
specially pray that war may not come to slay any 
mother's sons. Many of the workers for other reforms 
are enlisted in this, — Elizabeth H. Underbill, 
Amanda Deyo, Helen M. Slocum, Rachel Town- 
send, Lydia a. Scofield, Antoinette Doolittle, 
and others do valiant service in this cause. 

Then there is the moral reform movement, looking 



WOMEN REFORMERS. 433 

toward the establishment of purity and chastity in the 
land. LucmDA M. Chandler, Roxana Howe, M. 
V. Ball, and other ladies, have edited the periodicals 
or written the tracts used in this reform ; and Car- 
oline Talbot, Elizabeth Comstock, Phebb A. 
Hanaeord, and Narcissa Coffin, have not feared to 
go to the haunts of vice as the bearers of a gospel that 
cleanses the soul from sin, and makes the life pure and 
holy. 

Very possibly many names are omitted that ought to 
have been mentioned ; but it could not be helped. 1 
should have said more of Louisa A. Swain, than that 
she was a Gardner of Nantucket, and was the first 
woman to cast a vote in Wyoming, when the suffrage 
reform reached its height there. 

There was Mary Y. C. Greeley, who should have 
been mentioned as a stern reformer of the T ^- .^er type. 
" The New York Commercial Advert'oer " in speaking 
of her said, " Religion, with her, was not the cant of 
creeds, but in the grander acts of such great philan- 
thropists as Wilberforce and Howard, in the sublime 
stoopings of the Christ-child when he bends to lift a 
struggling orphan from the gutter, or grandly and 
bravely breaks the shackles of the slave." 

The list of reformers might be extended to cover all 
those women who have pursued any vocation not open 
to women a century ago ; and their name is legion. 
And all their sisters in private life, who add their 
prayers and sympathy, are reformers, though they do 
not say, but live out the words, — 

" I live for those who love me, 
For those who know me true, 
For the heaven that smiles above me, 
And the good that I can do." 



434 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

As the years go by the Reformers depart, leaving the 
work to other and younger hands. Lydia Maria Child, 
Lucretia Mott, The Grimke Sisters, Abby Smith, Helen 
M. Slocum, and Rachel Townsend, all have passed be- 
yond. But the workers come as well as go, and God has 
his champions for every reform. The Bands of Hope are 
preparing warriors for the coming conflicts, who shall 
secure the victories of total abstinence, arbitration, and 
purity of heart and life. 




CHAPTER XIII. 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 



Quaker Preacliers — Mrs. Van Cott and her Metliodist Sisters — An- 
toinette Brown Blackwell — Olyrapia Brown — Phebe A. Hanaford 
— Ada C. Bowles, &c. 

" Before this altar crowned with peace, 
This centre of our spirit home, 
Let every strife and question cease, 
And fruitful faith and concord come. 



For here thy last deliverance stands, 
To loose the palsied spell of fear ; 

And woman with unfettered hands 
Keeps thine accepted priesthood here. 



Julia "Ward Howe. 



" And the angel answered and said unto the women, ... Go quickly, and 
tell his disciples that he is risen. . . . Then said Jesus unto them, ... Go tell my 
brethren."— Matt, xxviii. 5-10. 



aO preach my gospel," was addressed to woman as 
much as to man; and the first to proclaim the 
risen Saviour was a woman. If it be true, as " The 
Spectator" says, that " what the pulpit wants is more 



436 WOiyTEN OF THE CENTURr. 

freshness and less convention, more character and less 
formula, more freedom and less fear," then the entrance 
of educated women into the ministry will secure the 
desired result, and the assumption of the pastoral office 
cannot be an act of presumption. The thing has been 
done, and done well. Success has set the seal of ap- 
proval upon the fact of woman as a preacher. 

Said the Rev. Brooke Herford at the Unitarian Fes 
tival of centennial year, held in Boston, June 1, 1876, 
" I don't think the day for a true ministry has gone by, 
and I doubt whether it ever will. The soul of the 
present generation is as restless for light, as earnestly 
asking who will show us any good, as at any time that 
has preceded it ; and he who feels that he has any light, 
and he who has any deep thought and strong conviction 
upon those great subjects which are, after all, not 
mere matters of creed, but which lie at the heart of 
human life, and are the faith which works in and out, 
and makes all works worthy, — he who has any thing 
of that faith will always find people who will help him 
with his livehhood, in order that he may give his whole 
heart and life to that work. Yes, the world will always 
find a livehhood for him who wishes to do this. And 
not only for him : I was at a meeting of women min- 
isters this morning, and I may include the word ' her,' 
and say that the world will always find a hearing and 
all help for the woman, as much as for the man, who 
really has any living word to speak, and feels called upoD 
to speak it, and has the power of speaking it so that it 
shall be heard. That I believe to be the solution of the 
question of the woman ministry that has been coming 
to the front gradually of late years. It is of no use to 
ply our old arguments about woman's right to preach, 
proving it with texts, and having a laugh at Paul 



WOMEN PRBA0HEE8. 437 

because he said this, or did not say tkis. We have a 
little proverb on our side, — I don't know that you have 
it here, but you have the thing at any rate, — and the 
proverb is, that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. 
And so, if the preaching be good, it will be heard." 

It has been reserved for the present age, and for 
the New World, — yes, for America, for the United 
States in her first century, — to show that all are one 
in Christ Jesus, by consenting to the fact that ecclesi- 
astical functions are the heritage of the daughters as 
well as of the sons of the Lord Almighty, when the 
Divine Voice says to any soul, — pointing to the pulpit 
and the pastorate, — " Go work to-day in my vineyard." 

The Society of Friends, or Quakers (as they were at 
first called in derision), have always had women among 
their preachers. Not a few women of Nantucket 
Island were approved ministers among Friends, during 
our first century as a nation, — Mary Alijsn Far- 
NiiM, Mary Macy, and others. Narcissa B. Coffin, 
of another New England State, but dwelling on that 
island, has labored successfully as a preacher. She is 
a granddaughter of Joseph Hoag, the celebrated 
Quaker preacher of New England, the father of a 
large family, whose daughters were all preachers, his 
sons also, and some of his sons' wives. Lucretia 
MoTT, the world-known woman preacher, is a native 
of the same island, where many have often been led 
to say, as they listened to hsr in the Unitarian 
church or Hicksite meeting-house or Siasconset school 

house, — 

" She spoke of justice, truth, and love; 

How soft her words distilled ! 

She spoke of (lod ; and all the place 

Was with his presence filled." ^ 

1 John W. Chadwick. 



438 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

She entered upon the work of the ministry when 
twenty-five years old (she was bom in 1793), and re- 
mained with the Orthodox Quakers till the separation 
in 1827, when, as she says, " My convictions led me to 
adhere to the sufficiency of the light within us, resting 
on truth as authority, rather than ' taking authority for 
truth.' The popular doctrine of total depravity never 
commended itself to my reason or conscience. I 
' searched the Scriptures daily,' finding a construction 
of the text wholly different from that which was 
pressed upon our acceptance. The highest evidence 
of a sound faith being the practical life of the Chris- 
tian, I have felt a far greater interest in the moral 
movements of our age, than in any theological discus- 
sion." Lucretia Mott still preaches in Philadelphia; 
and, though eighty-three years of age, her words of 
wisdom are listened to with great delight. 

Sybil Jones, one of the best women preachers 
among the Orthodox Friends in America, was born in 
1813, was the wife of Eli Jones, and died at her resi- 
dence in South China, Me., Dec. 4, 1873; thus fin- 
ishing an earthly life of sixty beautiful years, filled 
with love and good-will. A writer in the " Woman's 
Journal " says, " For forty years she was a favorite 
preacher of the Society of Friends, her husband being 
also a distinguished preacher. They visited and ad- 
dressed a large portion of the society in the United 
States and Canada. In 1851 they went together to 
the new Republic of Liberia, to preach the Word. 
From 1853 to 1855 they travelled in the same service 
through England, Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, 
the South of France, and Switzerland, being every- 
where well received. In 1866 they again visited 
England and Ireland, and from thence made two mii*- 




ELIZABETH COMSTOCK. 



WOMEN PKEACHERS. 441 

siouary tours to Egypt and the Holy Land. There 
she presented Christianity to Mohammedan women, 
from the Quaker standpoint of Christian equality of 
the sexes in social life, in religion, and the ministry 
of the Word. The heathen women listened to her with 
marked attention ; and schools in which her views are 
being taught are now in successful operation in those 
countries." 

Ann Kbnworthy, Rachel Townsend, Caroline 
Talbot, and Elizabeth Comstock, Susan How- 
land, Elizabeth Coggeshall, Rachel Howland, 
Mary H. Rogers, and others, should be numbered 
with the preaching women who have listened to the 
call from above, and faithfully obeyed, to the help of 
many souls. 

Sarah Smiley was formerly a Quaker ; but, choos- 
ing to be baptized, she passed fr-om among them, yet 
is not connected fully with any branch of Zion. 
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps refers to Miss Smiley as " a 
woman who has a voice as sweet as a robin's, a face as 
berene as a Madonna's, a courage as resolute as an apos- 
tle's, and a purpose as fixed as a Quaker's, and who 
wears her bonnet into the pulpit beside." But she 
lays aside the bonnet when she preaches ; and her 
expounding of the Old Testament symbols is very in- 
structive and interesting. She is said to be now writ- 
ing a commentary on the life of Joshua. Miss Smiley 
is between forty and fifty, and was educated at the 
Quaker school in Providence, R.I. She has spoken in 
many pulpits where no woman ever before spoke, and 
has thus familiarized many to a woman's voice in the 
ministry. She is proving also that biblical scholarship 
and the good work of an expounder is not confined to 
one sex. 



442 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell is tlie first 
woman regularly ordained by public services in Amer- 
ica, perhaps in the world. She was born May 20, 
1825, at Henrietta, Monroe County, N.Y. At twenty 
years of age she went to Oberlin College, and joined 
an advanced class in the ladies' course, and was 
graduated in the class of 1847. She then studied 
theology three years, taking full part in every study 
And every class exercise of the entire course, elocution 
included ; but was not counted as a theological gradu- 
ate because she was a woman. Her first public address 
was made nearly thirty years ago, when she was about 
twenty ; and she has spoken more or less ever since. 
She began to preach sermons with texts, and regular 
Sunday services, in 1848. She took part in the first 
National Woman's Convention in 1850 at Worcester, 
and preached on Sundays there several times soon 
after. That was just at the close of her theological 
studies, and was the initiation into the life of active, 
steady public work. In " Glances and Glimpses," by 
Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, is a description of Miss Brown's 
ordination. She went to South Butler, N.Y., to attend 
it in the midst of a raging storm. The Baptist Society 
opened their church for the occasion. Hymns were 
sung as usual. Remarks were made by Hon. Gerrit 
Smith ; and then the sermon was preached b" Rev. 
Luther Lee, from the text, '* There is neither male nor 
female ; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." The ser- 
mon was published at Syracuse in 1853. (The ordina- 
tion occurred Sept. 15, 1853.) The theme of the 
discourse was " Woman's Right to preach the Gospel." 
The arguments were forcible ; and at the close Mr. Lee 
said, — 

" We are here assembled on a very interesting and 



WOMEN PREACHEKS. 443 

solemn occasion, and it is proper to advert to the real 
object for which we have come together. There are 
in the world, and there may be among us, false views 
of the nature and object of ordination. I do not 
believe that any special or specific form of ordination 
is necessary to constitute a gospel minister. We are 
not here to make a minister. It is not to confer on 
this our sister a right to preach the gospel. If she 
has not that right already, we have no power to com- 
municate it to her. Nor have we met to qualify her 
for the work of the ministry. If God, and mental and 
moral culture, have not already qualified her, we can 
not by any thing we may do by way of ordaining or 
setting her apart. Nor can we, by imposition of our 
hands, confer on her any special grace for the work of 
the ministry ; nor will our hands, if imposed upon her 
head, serve as any special medium for the communica- 
tion of the Holy Ghost, as conductors serve to convey 
electricity. Such ideas belong not to our theory, but 
are related to other systems and darker ages. All we 
are here to do, and aU we expect to do, is in due form, 
and by a solemn and impressive service, to subscribe 
our testimony to the fact, that, in our belief, our sister 
in Christ, Antoinette L. Brown, is one of the ministers 
of the new covenant, authorized, qualified, and called 
of God, to preach the gospel of his Son Jesus Christ. 
This is all ; but even this renders the occasion interest- 
ing and solemn. As she is recognized as the pastor of 
this flock it is solemn and interesting to both pastor 
and flock to have the relation formally recognized." 

At the age of thirty this ordained woman became 
the wife of Samuel C Blackwell, and since that time has 
retired from pastoral laliors, and given her attention to 
the training of their five daughters. Her home at 



444 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

present is in Somerville, N.J., where she is often busy 
with her books and pen. Her first, or nearly the first 
printed paper, was published in the Oberlin Quarterly 
in 1849, but was written some time before. Pres. 
Mahan heard of the article, which was prepared as a 
student's essay, asked for it, and generously proposed 
to pubUsh it, as he indorsed its positions. It was the 
first, pel haps, of its class of expositions, and lias philo- 
logical value, as well as furnishing a powerful argument 
in favor of woman's preaching. It closes with these 
forcible and truthful words : " But in what portion of 
the inspired volume do we find any commandment for- 
bidding woman to act as a public teacher, provided she 
had a message worth communicating, and will deliver 
it in a manner worthy of her high vocation ? Surely 
nowhere if not in the passages we have just been 
considering. Where have any of the inspired writers 
said, I suffer not a woman to teach in public, and to 
stand up in the name of her Redeemer, administering 
the cup of salvation to the lips of dying immortals, 
even though her spirit is yearning to break unto them 
the bread of eternal life ? This was too sacred a sub- 
ject to be coldly decided by the voice of law ; and they 
have left it, where it must ever remain, at the portal 
of the individual conscience of eveiy moral agent." ^ 

At the time Mrs. Blackwell was at the Woman's 
Convention, in 1853, she was sent as a delegate from 
her church and from a Rochester society to a temper- 
ance convention. Wendell Phillips and Mrs. C. A. 
Severance went with her, though not delegates. Her 
credentials were accepted ; and she rose merely to thank 
them for that, intending to retire at once. They re- 
fused her, though a delegate, the right of speech, simply 

1 Oberlin Quarterly Review, July, 1849. 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 445 

because she was a woman. Of course she could not 
then withdraw till the right was vindicated. Rev. 
Wilham H. Channing went with her the next day ; for, 
after a packed house in the great hall had taken a 
whole day to discuss the matter, they ended by shutting 
out Mr. Phillips and others, as non-delegates. Another 
half-day, and they shut the whole party out, by a 
curious action, which in effect put every delegate in 
leading-strings. But the result, as far as she was con- 
cerned, was to give her an opportunity to preach in 
the same hall the next Sunday, to a vast audience, all 
so attentive that her voice reached every part easily. 
Thus she shared with Lucretia Mott in that species of 
injustice and persecution on account of sex which the 
second century will be sure to rebuke in every possible 
way. 

Rev. Olympia Brown (now married to John H. 
Willis, but preferring not to change her name) was 
born in Kalamazoo, Mich. She is of New England 
parentage, and has the blood of Gen. Putnam, of Revo- 
lutionary prowess, in her veins. She studied at Mount 
Holyoke Seminary, was graduated at Antioch College, 
and has since received the degree of A.M. from her 
Alma Mater. She studied theology at St. Lawrence 
University, and is a graduate of Canton Theological 
School. She was the first woman ordained among the 
Universalists, though Maria Cook and Lydla. A. 
Jenkins had preached acceptably long years before. 
Neither of these was ever settled as pastor. Olympia 
Brown was ordained in Canton, N.Y., in 1863, and 
preached first in Vermont ; buA her first pastorate was 
that of Weymouth, Mass., wheie she labored six years 
very successfully. She then removed to the larger field 
of Bridgeport, Conu., where she still resides. She took 



446 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

her place in the ranks of the ministry as well furnished 
intellectually as any man ever was, at least so far as 
study could insure preparation ; and in logical acumen 
and forcible speech she has few equals. She seldom 
or never speaks upon a theme with which she is not 
thoroughly conversant ; and, when she has finished her 
remarks, little more remains to be said. She has won- 
derful power of concentration, and hangs on to an 
opponent with a tenacity which forbids escape till she 
has shaken the error out of his arguments, and left him 
and them powerless and overcome. She is the champion 
disputant among women preachers ; and to her, as she 
once remarked, the word " conflict " is the best loved 
in the English language. Years of successful service 
as preacher and pastor have enabled her to prove that 
woman has capacity for ecclesiastical functions and 
labors. She delivered the occasional sermon before 
the Connecticut State Convention of Universahsts in 
1872. In 1874 her son Henry Parker Wilhs was born, 
the mother still continuing her pastorate. She has 
been already mentioned as lecturer and reformer. It 
is in the ranks of the latter that she is most at home, 
dealing vaHant blows for the right. She has had pub- 
lished several sermons, and has often contributed to 
the pubHc press earnest words in reference to church 
work and reform. Her name will live as the synonyme 
for bravery and persistency in reformatory efforts. 

Rev. Augusta J. Chapin was ordained the same 
year with Olympia Brown, and has successfully labored 
in the West. During the year 1874 she was noticea- 
bly engaged in reconciling adverse societies in San 
Francisco, and was the means of placing that flourish- 
ing church now in California upon a solid basis. She 
was afterward pastor of the Universalist church in 



WOMEN PEEACHEES. 447 

Pittsburg, Penn., but is now in the West again. She 
was a member of the first congress of women held in 
New York, and contributed a paper on " Woman in the 
Ministry." She has occasionally furnished sermons to 
the press. 

Rev. Phebe a. Hanaford was born on Nantucket 
Island, May 6, 1829. Her maiden name was CoflBn, as 
was also Lucretia Mott's. Her father, Capt. George 
W. Coffin, was a descendant of Tristram Coffin, the 
earliest known of the family in this country, whose 
genealogy can be traced in England to the time of 
William the Conqueror. Her mother, Phebe Ann 
Barnard, was thrice descended from Peter Folger, the 
grandfather of Benjamin Franklin, who was of Hugue- 
not origin. The Coffin and Folger families are largely 
represented on Nantucket, and, being descendants of 
the early settlers, possess the influence and honor 
accorded to " first families." Every noted person from 
that island (and they are numerous) has had the blood 
of one or both these families in their veins. As long 
as *' the glory of children are their fathers," a pure 
and noble ancestry must be prized. Mrs. Hanaford 
studied in the private and public schools of Nantucket, 
was never a graduate of any; studied Latin and the 
higher mathematics with an Episcopal clergyman. Has 
always been a student, and always will be. Began 
teaching when sixteen, was married at twenty, and has 
a son and daughter. Mrs. Hanaford's literary record 
is in the chapter on " Literary Women ; " her poems 
and lectures are mentioned in other chapters. She 
was ordained as pastor of the Universalist Church 
in Hingham, Mass., in 1868, having preached more 
than a year there previously. In 1869 she had charge 
also of the parish at Waltham. In 1870, resigning 



448 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

both parishes, she was installed in New Haven, Conn. 
In 1874 she removed to Jersey City, aLd was installed 
[)astor of the Church of the Good Shepherd, on the 
Heights. Rev. John G. Adams preached her ordination 
sermon. Rev. Olympia Brown, Rev. Edwin H. Chapin, 
D.D., and Rev. Benjamin F. Bowles, her subsequent 
installation sermons. Her hymns on every occasion 
were written by women, only one of whom (Mrs. Soule) 
read her own production. The following were the 
writers, each worthy to be mentioned often among the 
women of the century : Cakoline A. Mason, Hannah 
Farmer, ^ Nancy T. Munroe, Almiba Seymour, 
Martha A. Adams, Eunice Hale Cobb, Julia 
Ward Howe, Ellen E. Miles, Lucie F. Johnson, 
Lucy M. Creemer, Caroline A. Soule. 

Up to the present time Mrs. Hanaford has officiated 
at nearly a hundred funerals, and over thirty mar- 
riages. She was the first woman who ever offered the 
ordaining prayer and afterward exchanged pulpits with 
her own son, both being settled pastors. She was the 
first woman who ever officiated at the marriage of her 
own daughter. She was the first woman regularly 
ordained in Massachusetts or New England. She was 
the first woman who ever, as a regularly appointed 
chaplain, officiated in the Legislature of Connecticut, 
which she did in 1870 and 1872 several times in 
Senate and in House of Representatives. She was the 
first woman in the world who ever officiated in such 
capacity in a legislative body of men. She was a mem- 
ber of the Universalist Committee on Fellowship, Or- 
dination, and Discipline in Connecticut, and has sei'ved 
for three years as chau-man of such a committee in 
New Jersey. She has preached the occasional sermons 

1 " Mabelle," w ife of Moses G. Fanner 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 449 

at Association and Convention, and has been two years 
secretary of the New Jersey State Convention of Uni- 
versalists, which gives her ex-offido membership in the 
General Convention. She was one of the vice-presi- 
dents of the association for the advancement of women 
(Women's Congress) at its formation, and has since 
been on its executive board, and has furnished papers 
for two congresses. She offered the dedicatory prayer 
in the new Universalist Church in Waterbury, Conn., 
in 1872, being the first who was ever called to such 
service. And she was the first woman minister who ever 
.gave the charge at the ordination of a man minister, — 
the occasion being the ordination of Rev. W. G. Has- 
kell, in Marblehead, Mass. She officiated at the funer- 
al of the oldest Free Mason of Connecticut in 1874,^ 
and the same year at that of the oldest Free Mason in 
America ; ^ and was the first woman who ever attended 
a Masonic festival, and responded with an address to a 
toast by regular appointment. These things are men- 
tioned, not alone to mark her as a pioneer, but to show 
what woman can do hereafter. She is seeking to open 
the way for other women, as Olympia Brown, Lucy 
Stone, Lucretia Mott, and others have opened the way 
for her. She disclaims credit for having walked in a 
God-appointed path ; but only claims to be a busy, 
hopeful, loving woman, whose highest joy will be at- 
tained when right shall triumph over might, and every 
soul shall be saved from sin. 

Among those whom Olympia Brown helped toward 
the ministry was a young girl, Ruth Augusta Da- 
mon, who has since studied at Canton Theological 
School in New York, then married one of our men min- 
isters, Rev. James B. Tabor; has recently been licensed 

1 Samuel Wire. " Daniel Bostwiok. 



450 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

by the Vermont State Convention. Rev. Mrs. MABiANii 
Thompson Folsom, the wife also of a minister of our 
faith, Rev. Allen P. Folsom, studied at Canton, was or- 
dained in the West in 1870, and is still actively en- 
gaged in ministerial service. She is the mother of one 
child. She was at one time the successor of Olympia 
Brown at Weymouth, Mass. ; and while she was there 
Mrs. Caroline I. James preached her first sermon in 
that pulpit, — a lady who has not yet been ordained, 
but is at work on a book called " Primitive Religions." 

In 1869 Rev. Prudy Le Clero was ordained. She 
now preaches in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. In 1871 Rev. 
Eliza Topper, who afterwards married, and is now 
known as Rev. Eliza Tupper Wilkes, was ordained, 
and labored with success, in Rochester, Minn., till her 
removal to Black Hawk, Col., where she still engages 
in missionary labors when her health will allow, and 
opportunity is afforded. 

Rev. LoRENZA Haynes, born in Waltham, Mass., 
April 14, 1820, was ordained in 1874, at Hallowell, 
Me., where she has been a successful preacher. She 
was the oldest woman who ever studied in Canton 
Theological School, or was ever ordained ; but her 
more than fifty years of earnest study and faithful 
teaching in Lowell, Mass., and Rochester, N.Y., and 
efficient labors as librarian for six years in the public 
library of her native town, furnished her intellectually 
with great thoroughness for her work. She had long 
.been a writer for various periodicals ; and her graceful 
pen could not be better used than in the service of the 
pulpit as well as the press. She has recently accepted 
a call to Marlboro', Mass. She has lectured on various 
themes, and has acted as chaplain in the Maine Legis- 
lature. 

1 Ordaiued in 187b. * Since deceased 



WOMEN PRBACHERS. 451 

Rev. Ada C. Bowles was ordained at the meeting 
of the State Convention in Bradford, Penn., in 1875, 
and is the successful pastor of the church in Easton, 
Penn., though she still resides in Philadelphia, where 
her husband, Rev. B. F. Bowles, is pastor of a flourish- 
ing church. She was born in Gloucester, Mass., Aug. 
2, 1836, and has been a welcomed lecturer on suffrage 
and temperance for many years. She married Mr. 
Bowles in 1858, and studied theology with him. She 
had previously been a teacher. She preached her first 
sermon in Webster, Mass., June 27, 1869. She is a 
woman of superior ability, and a good preacher. 

Besides these ordained and settled women ministers, 
there are others who often preach : among them, Mrs. 
Elizabeth M. Bruce of Melrose, Mass., who is the 
author of several excellent works for children, and is 
the present editor of the Sunday-school paper published 
In Boston, called " The Myrtle ; " Mrs. Fidelia Wool- 
ley GUiLETT of Rochester, Mich., who is the daughter 
of Rev. Edward Mott Woolley, and appears to inherit 
her father's ability as a preacher ; Miss Florence 
Ellen Kollock of Bellville, Wis., who has just fin- 
ished her studies in Canton Theological School. 

Miss Ella Elizabeth Bartlett and Miss An- 
nette Shaw are now studying for the ministry in 
Canton. Miss Bartlett, who was baptized by Mrs. 
Hanaford at New Haven, in 1872, preached her first 
eermon in Nyack, on Sept. 26, 1875, to great accept- 
ance. Mrs. Abbee Ellsworth Da^forth is studjdng 
for the ministry at Canton Theological School. She is 
from Peru, O., and gives promise of usefulness. 

Besides these ordained and licensed preachers and 
theological students, there are women in the Universal- 
ist denomijoation who serve as lay-preachers, with or 



452 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

without license, as they choose. Mrs. Caroline A. 
Soule is one of these. The widow of a minister, thor- 
oughly educated, and with the varied experience of a 
wife and mother, an author and editor, a brilliant 
writer in prose and verse, the present editor of the best 
Sunday-school paper of the denomination, she has done 
yeoman's service in the behalf of woman and woman- 
hood, of truth and freedom, of enlightened motherhood, 
and the higher education of our sex. In 1875 she was 
in Scotland seeking health, but, even in her feeble state, 
preached and lectured to large and enthusiastic audi- 
ences, and taught our sisters abroad something of what 
a woman can do ; and pronounced the sentence of con- 
secration of the first Universalist church in Scotland. 

Mrs. Mary C. Webster, wife of Rev. Charles H. 
Webster of Hartford, Conn., preached her first sermon 
in Mrs. Hanaford's pulpit, in 1872, and has often since 
proclaimed the gospel acceptably. She also is an 
excellent writer for our papers, in prose and verse. 

Mrs. Jane C. Patterson, wife of Rev. Dr. Patter- 
son, of Boston Highlands, Mass., who is also a fine 
writer, has often preached for her husband acceptably. 

Last, but not least, one whose y&cj name will be 
sufficient to show that even unlicensed women speakers 
are acceptable in the pulpit, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore 
— whose husband. Rev. Daniel P. Livermore, one of 
nature's noblemen, is successor of Mrs. Hanaford in 
the Hingham pulpit — preached her first sermon there 
in 1869, as a labor of love for Mrs. Hanaford. None 
need be told how pastor and people hung upon her 
eloquent words, as " apples of gold in pictures of 
silver." Her sabbaths are seldom idle ones ; and her 
preaching is everywhere acceptable. 

Sarah M. C. Perkins " was born in Otsego, N.Y. 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 453 

April 23, 1824. She was the seventh child of her 
parents, and one of a family of nine children. Her 
father belonged to a branch of the Clinton family that 
were distinguished in the early histoi y of the country. 
They came from England, and dearly loved the mother 
country, but loved freedom and right better, and took 
an active part in the early struggle for the independ- 
ence of the colonies. 

" The name of the mother was Mathewson. This 
family was of Scotch origin ; some members of it settled 
in Connecticut, others in Rhode Island, and nearly all 
of them became wealthy and prosperous. They were 
Puritans, who braved the dangers and the hardships of 
the New World, rather than submit to the religious 
intolerance of the Old. 

" Mrs. Perkins always speaks of her mother as a 
woman of remarkable native talent, strong and efficient, 
yet possessing a heart full of kindness and generosity 
to every living being. She was particularly kind to the 
unfortunate. Her children were so accustomed to run 
on errands of mercy to the poorer ones around them, 
canying milk, or a piece of meat, or a loaf of bread, 
that, when old enough to think of it at all, they were 
surprised that other children were not out on similar 
errands. It seemed such a right and proper thing to 
do, that they were surprised that others did not enjoy 
the same pleasure. 

" When the subject of this notice was ten years of age, 
the father died very suddenly ; and it was found neces- 
sary that all the children who were old enough should 
earn their own support. At that early age even, she 
was the best scholar in the district school ; and she shed 
many bitter tears when she found that the precious 
school privileges must all be relinquished. Yet no out- 



454 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

ward niuimur was heard. To the members of the 
family she was as cheerful as ever, as she went to her 
daily tasks. With a quivering lip, but with a brave, 
childish heart, she put away the schoolbooks that she 
loved so well, and went to the work that she did not 
love in a cotton-mill. 

" Yet amid these uncongenial surroundings she kept 
along with her studies. Books were strictly forbidden ; 
but a few leaves of the book would be smuggled into 
the pocket, and, when a spare moment came, the eyes 
and the memory were busy, and the lesson learned. 
Or, in the early morning before she went to her task, a 
sum in the arithmetic would be carefully copied upon 
a piece of paper ; another piece of paper and pencil were 
ready ; and, when the spare moment came, that sum 
would be carefully worked out. Those around her 
called her a queer child, and often wondered what she 
was ' digging at.' Sometimes the paper would give 
out, and then the figures would be placed upon the 
smoky walls ; and there they remained long after the 
studious child stood at a teacher's desk in another 
State. 

" Her allotted tasks were never neglected ; indeed, she 
became a proficient in her employment, and was rapidly 
promoted from one room to another, even when so 
small that a little platform was erected to increase her 
height as she stood before the noisy machines. When 
she was fifteen years of age she lost a dear sister by 
death, a beautiful girl twenty-two years of age. She 
had almost idolized this sister, and was inconsolable in 
her grief. Life was loathsome to her ; and she craved, 
she madly prayed for, the rest of the grave. During 
this severe grief, she wondered how the birds coiild 
sing, or the sun shine, in such a miserable world, where 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 455 

the fondest ties were so suddenly broken. It was in 
this time of darkness that she began earnestly to in- 
quire about the immortal life brought to light in the 
gospel. She eagerly studied the Bible, and strove ear- 
nestly for the newness of heart that brings reconcilia- 
tion to God, even in severe afflictions. The peace 
came at length, not with the sudden brightness that 
blinded Saul of Tarsus, but with the cry, ' Lord, I be- 
believe : help thou mine unbelief.' 

" Unreservedly she consecrated herself to God and to 
his cause in the world. Then the desire came to her to 
be a missionary in for<;ign lands. Her own heart was 
full of zeal ; and she wanted to tell others of this inner 
life, the ' life hid with Christ in God.' But the way 
seemed hedged up ; and she soon learned that she could 
do missionary work just there where a kind Providence 
had placed her. She united with the church, became 
a teacher in the sabbath school, and in every way 
possible became a helper of those less fortunate than 
herself. 

" Thus the years passed till she was eighteen years of 
age. Like ' Jane Eyre ' by Miss Bronte, she had long 
sighed for a ' change of servitude' if nothing more. 
When her eighteenth birthday came, she said to her 
mother, pointing to the large stone mill, ' That is a 
very large building, but not large enough to hold me 
any longer.' 

" Accordingly she went before the examining com- 
mittee, readily procured the required certificate, appHed 
for the school in her own district, obtained it, and went 
to her work of teaching. . . . 

" The next summer found her teaching a large school 
in Savoy. Before going there she went before the 
school board for the requisite certificate. Upon this 



456 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

board was a young student of divinity, who waa then 
pursuing his Greek studies with a distinguished lawyer 
of Adams. During the summer it was said that this 
clergyman visited the school rather oftener than was 
necessary for the duties of his official position. 

" However that may be, two years later the papers 
chronicled the marriage of Rev. Orren Perkins with 
Sarah M. Clinton. The ceremony was performed by 
Rev. E. H. Chapin, who was then settled at Charles- 
town. 

" Their first home was in a quiet parsonage in Ber- 
nardston, Mass., in the beautiful valley of the 
Connecticut, in the midst of kind friends who min- 
istered to their temporal wants, and made them very 
happy by their warm friendship. When once comfort- 
ably settled, a course of study for each day was care- 
fuDy marked out, and steadily pursued from year to 
year. They were united in their Hterary tastes and 
pursuits ; and the young wife received the most kindly 
sympathy and encouragement from her husband in her 
intellectual researches. At his suggestion she began 
to write for the papers and periodicals ; her articles 
were published, and many kindly letters were received 
from those who appreciated those fugitive pieces. 

"• A few years later, when their home was in Shirley, 
Mrs. Perkins wrote her first book. It was a little sab- 
bath-school volume published by the Congrega/^ional 
Jlouse in Boston, entitled 'Clouds and Sunbeams.' 

" The book came out during the holidays, the same 
week of the birth of the second child. The father 
brought the book into the nursery, laid it beside the 
little bundle of flannel upon the pillow, and exclaimed, 
' Rather smart woman to give the world a book and a 
baby during the same week 1 ' 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 457 

" Several other books were written in the following 
years ; one of them, ' Alice and her Friends,' receiving 
a prize offered by a Boston pubhshing company. 

"Next their home was in Winchester, N.H., where 
they remained twelve years. In addition to his labors 
as a clergyman, Mr. Perkins served three years in the 
State Legislature, and two years in the Senate. Mrs. 
Perkins accompanied him each year to Concord, and 
saw much to interest her during these visits. She lis- 
tened to stirring debates in the State House, heard elo- 
quent sermons from the pulpits, and attended brilliant 
parties given by the first families of the city. She here 
formed the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel 
White, whom she is still proud to number among her 
personal friends." 

Mrs. Armenia Wbute is a woman of the century 
who could have been honorably mentioned among the 
women philanthropists or reformers, or women of the 
civil war. She has labored faithfully in every reform. 
She has spoken in and presided over public meetings 
in the interests of temperance and woman suffrage, and 
has used the wealth God has given her for his cause in 
every possible way. The writer of this book can use 
the apostle's words, " She hath been a succorer of many 
and of myself also." She has been nobly seconded in 
all her efforts by a benevolent and generous husband. 

To return to Mrs. Perkins : " The failure of Mr. 
Perkins's health induced them to dispose of their home 
in New Hampshire ; and they gave an entire winter to 
rest among friends at Coopers town, N.Y. 

" The next spring they took charge of the Coopers- 
town Seminary, and remained there till the school was 
sold, two years later. These years passed very plea- 
santly ; Mrs. Perkins teaching the advanced English 



458 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

classes, and heartily enjoying the society of the young 
gentlemen and lady pupils. A family of more than one 
hundred was under her supervision ; and in addition to 
this she took home four little motherless children with- 
out compensation, and provided for them till good piacea 
were secured in other homes. No student who applied 
for admission was ever sent away for lack of money. 
A little work would be given them, — sewing for the 
girls ; the ringing of the bell, and preparing the fuel, by 
the boys. 

" A story is told of one boy who walked nine miles, 
and came to the seminary, and asked to see the prin- 
cipal. 

" ' Mr. Perkins,' said he a little bashfully, ' I have no 
money, but I want to go to school. Can you give me 
some work, and let me study ? ' 

" ' Have you ever worked out ? ' 

" ' Yes ; I was hired to Mr. Jarvis last summer.' 

" ' Did you bring a recommendation from him ? ' 

'' ' No, sir ; but I can tell you what he said of me. 
He said that I was not worth a penny for work, but was 
good at a hook.'' 

Mr. Perkins smiled at this, and went and consulted 
his wife. 

" ' Take him,' she replied. ' There is truth in the 
boy to tell that about himself.' 

" He was admitted to the school, became a diligent 
student, and was so much attached to the family that 
he remained with them more than a year after they 
left the seminary, always serving them faithfully ; and 
he continued his studies, with Mrs. Perkins for his 
teacher. That lad is now a medical student, and is a 
good and useful man. IMany other students will always 
gratefully remember this seminary, for the aid they 
there received in obtaining a higher education. 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 459 

" Four years ago Mrs. Perkins went upon the plat- 
form as a lecturer. Her first lecture was given at Mrs. 
Hanaford's church in New Haven, Conn., and received 
the approbation of that lady, and of the people to 
whom she ministered in spiritual things. The next 
year, following the inward promptings of the Spirit, 
encouraged also by her best friends, she occasionally 
entered the pulpit as a Christian teacher. The same 
Master who told Mary to go and tell that he had risen 
has blessed her work ; and with this approval she is 
satisfied. 

" The name of Mrs. Perkins was upon the first call 
for a Woman's Congress in 1873. Her paper upon the 
' Higher Education of Woman ' was very well received, 
and was published with the other papers in a pamphlet 
form. In 1875, at Syracuse, she read a paper upon the 
' Uses of Money,' which elicited much applause for its 
terse sentences, and bold original thought. In that 
paper was an earnest plea for the education of poor 
girls who are bright and ambitious, but who cannot 
pay their expenses at any school. 

" She is a real friend to such girls, many of whom 
she has assisted to gain the knowledge which is power, 
and the higher knowledge that endureth to eternal life. 
She is still a student, every day reading French and 
German and the best Enghsh authors, and every day 
endeavoring to discharge properly her whole duty in 
the position where she is placed by an overruling Prov- 
idence. Among the lowly ones does she especially 
love to labor. In mission sabbath schools, in unpopular 
temperance work, in prison reform, she is ever ready 
with voice and pen and purse ; and, with a heart full 
of love and faith and peace, she toils on, remember- 
ing the words of the Great Teacher, — 



460 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

♦' * Inasmuch as ye have dorip it unto the least of 
these, ye have done it unto me.' " 

" Jennie Fowler Willing was born in Burford, 
Canada West, Jan. 22, 1834. Removed with her 
father's family to Illinois in 1842. Owing to ill health 
:»he was in the main self-educated. She became the 
wife of a Methodist minister, Rev. W. C. Willing, in 
1853. She began writing for the press in her early 
girlhood ; and in 1862 she decided to make literature a 
profession. She carried out this purpose to the best 
of her ability, burdened as she was with domestic and 
churchly cares, receiving in 1867 the honorary degree 
of M. E. L. from Jennings Seminary, Aurora, 111., and 
in 1871 that of A. M. from the Evanston College for 
Ladies. In 1873 she was elected Professor of English 
Language and Literature in the Illinois Wesleyan Uni- 
versity of Bloomington — an institution of first grade. 
In 1874 she was nominated by a very respectable con- 
vention of Prohibitionists, Superintendent of Public 
Instruction for the State. She declined the nomination, 
however, as the position she occupied was much more 
to her mind. 

" She writes for many of the leading periodicals East 
and West. She has written one book of religious fic- 
tion, that received many kind notices from the press, 
and a serial that was published in a New York paper. 
In 1875 she was elected editor of the ' Woman's Tem- 
perance Union,' published by the National ChristiaD 
Woman Temperance Union as its organ. 

" She presided in the preliminary meeting held at 
Chautauqua Lake S.S. Assembly in 1874, in which the 
first arrangements were made for calling a convention 
to organize the N. C. W. T. U. ; issued the call for 



p 



^ 




JENNIE F. WILLING. 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 463 

the Cleveland Convention, and presided over it in No- 
vember of the same year. She is also president of the 
South Side Temperance Union, Chicago, and of the 
Illinois State Temperance Union. 

" Largely through her influence, the Woman's Edu- 
cational Association of Bloomington was organized, and 
has provided a home where cheap board is given young 
ladies who are struggling to secure higher education, 

" In 1869 she was elected one of the corresponding 
secretaries of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which position she 
has filled ever since, having care of the four States lying 
about Chicago. In 1873 she was licensed as a local- 
preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and is 
usually occupied upon sabbaths, preaching in the pul- 
pits in and near Chicago. 

" She has delivered sermons and anniversary ad- 
dresses in most of the principal pulpits of her denomi- 
nation in all the large cities East and West." 

A. M. O'Daniels was born in Hubbardston, Mass., 
March 14, 1828. She was of long-lived ancestry on 
her father's side ; but her mother died at the age of 
forty-three, of consumption. At that time she went to 
live with an aunt in Westminster, Mass. Of this 
period, when she was ten years old, she says : — 

" We lived on a farm in a retired way, so that 1 
seldom saw any one but the family except on Sunday, 
and during the session of the district school, which was 
then held but two terms of nine weeks each, iii the 
year. 

" Having no one of my own age to talk with, or who 
sympathized with me, I learned to like solitude and to 



464 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

give myself up to wild fancies. My time was spent in 
assisting about the housework, and braiding palm-leaf 
hats ; and, as the latter required but little thought, T 
would let my mind go roaming in the fields of imagina- 
tion while my fingers were employed. I had a most 
intense longing for my mother's presence, that I could 
make known my thoughts to her, and receive her coun- 
sel and sympathy. I early learned to feel that her 
spirit was often with me, and that she would watch 
over and protect, as much as possible, her children left 
on earth. 

" My life was passed in this uneventful way till I was 
eighteen, at which time I was entitled to my own earn- 
ings, and could be my own mistress. Wishing to get 
an education better than the common school had af- 
forded me (I had attended at the academy one terra 
only), I began to devise ways by which T could do 
it. Working out, doing housework at one dollar and 
sometimes a dollar and a half per week, I earned suffi- 
cient to provide myself with clothes, and then worked 
for my board three terms in the family of Mr. Hudson, 
and one term boarded at home, while I attended the 
academy. I taught school the summer I was seven- 
teen, and again when nineteen. Afterwards, thinking 
I should attain my object sooner because I could earn 
money faster, I went into a factory, where I remained 
eight or nine months. At twenty-two I had saved 
forty-two dollars, and, with a cousin, started to board 
ourselves at Westfield Normal School. I remained 
two terms at that time, not returning home during 
the summer vacation, because I could not afford the 
expense, but spent it with a friend, working for my 
board. The terms were then fourteen weeks in length. 
I returned to Westminster at the end of the second 



WOMEN PBEACHER8. 465 

term, with two dollars left, after paying all my ex- 
penses and providing necessary clothing. Our hoard, 
room-rent, fuel, and lights for those two terms, cost us 
just forty-seven cents per week each, for my cousin 
and myself. 

" In the winter and following summer I taught school 
in Westminster, and returned to Westfield again in the 
fall to complete the required three terms of the course, 
which was then the rule. Before the close of that 
term, application was made for a teacher to go to 
Gloucester. I went in obedience to the call, and re- 
mained till a year from the following spring, when, 
wishing to pursue my studies still further, I 'returned 
again to Westfield, and remained nearly two terms 
more, and afterwards taught two terms in the model 
school connected with the normal, being principal of 
that department. 

" The winter of 1853 and 1854 I taught in Hopkinton, 
and the following summer in Westminster. I taught 
also in IVIitteneaque, and six terms in Westminster at 
different times. During that summer T resolved to 
enter Antioch College at Yellow Springs, O., and 
spent the winter in a factory at Lawrence to get the 
means. Before spring I received an application to go 
as teacher to the House of Refuge, Cincinnati. I went 
in March, 1855, remained till the opening of the school 
year at Antioch in 1856, when I entered that institu- 
tion, and took an elective course, being a member of all 
the four college classes, and the two higher preparatory 
during the year, as I took studies that led me into 
those classes. 

" I may here mention that soon after entering the 
school, T joined the Alethezeteon Society, which was 
one of four different literary societies connected with 



466 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

the school. This one was composed entirely of ladies. 
The others were either of gentlemen or both sexes com- 
bined, although the two sexes did not ordinarily hold 
meetings together. A short time before the close of 
my third term, the Star and Crescent, which contained 
both sexes, held a public meeting in the chapel. The 
Adelphian, which was a gentleman's society, also held 
one ; and we thought our society (which contained 
some scholars as good as any to be found in the school, 
among them a niece of Pies. Mann), were entitled 
to the use of the chapel for a public meeting, and ac- 
cordingly began to make preparations for holding it, 
and then sent a request to the faculty for permission , 
when, to our surprise, we were refused, and wholly on 
the ground that we were women, and had no gentlemen 
connected with us to go with us upon the platform. 
This seemed so weak and puerile, as they assigned no 
other motive for their refusal, that we naturally felt 
somewhat indignant, and felt that the sympathies of 
most of the school, as well as the people of the village, 
were with us. We met, drew up a series of resolutions 
condemning the course of the faculty, and setting forth 
our claims, which we sent to them, then disbanded ; 
and two of us, a Mrs. Gushing and myself, left the 
school two weeks before the close of the term. We 
remained in the place, however ; and, as Dr. Bellows 
had previously been invited to give an address before 
all the literary societies the day before commencement, 
we attended that meeting in a body, all of us except 
the president's niece, numbering seventeen, dressed in 
black, in mourning that prejudice was still so strong as 
to deny what seemed so reasonable and just a demand. 

" Prolonged applause greeted our entrance into the 
crowded chapel, as the idea was caught by those who 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 467 

saw us pass to the seats which had been held in reserve. 
This was welcomed as a token of sympathy with the 
idea which we represented. 

" This occurred in July, 1857. The next day I lefl 
Yellow Springs, to take charge of a school in Sylvania, 
in the northern part of Ohio. I remained there three 
months, when I returned to Westminster, Mass., where 
I was married, Nov. 26, 1857, to De Witt Chnton 
O 'Daniels, who was then preaching for the Unitarian 
society in Athol, Mass., in which place we remained tiU 
a year from the following spring." 

Four boys were born to them, making glad a home 
that was continually changed as the father's health 
failed, and he was obliged to alternate between can- 
vassing and preaching. He died on the 6th February, 
1867 ; and the bereaved mother set about the work of 
supporting the children, with a trusting and brave 
spirit. Having made arrangements for her children's 
comfort in good homes with kind friends, she took up 
the business of canvassing for books, to support them. 
She writes of this period to the author of this book : — 

'* In obtaining my orders I walked all the time, often 
ten miles per day ; and when the days were very warm, 
and the ground dry and parched, as was sometimes the 
case, my feet were blistered when night came. 

••' I usually had some stopping-place for the night 
with some friend or old acquaintance ; but it sometimes 
happened that I could not return at night to the place 
from which I started in the morning ; and several times 
I would start Monday morning, not to return till Satur- 
day night, with my satchel and book, and would find a 
night's lodging among strangers wherever darkness 
overtook me. 



468 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

" At such times I would look almost with envy upon 
the dogs in the street, that knew where they could lay 
their heads to rest, while I did not, 

" Yet here let me say, that though the world is called 
cold and heartless, I have found, as I have thus gone 
from house to house, among entire strangers, more kind 
treatment and heartfelt sympathy then I had expected, 
— enough to strengthen my faith in the native goodness 
of the human heart, and to teach me there is some of 
the divine nature in every hiunan soul. 

" Often, instead of being obliged to ask for a night's 
lodging, it has been proffered by those who were en- 
tire strangers ; and more frequently I was asked to par- 
take with the family when I called at meal-time. The 
cordiality that was so frequently manifested, and the 
pleasant chats I often had with many whom I met, gave 
me many a heart-thrill of joy, and did much to lighten 
my somewhat weary pilgrimage. T feel that I owe 
a debt of gratitude to very many whose faces I may 
never meet again on earth ; and the only way I can 
repay it is by passing their gifts of kind words and 
pleasant deeds to those whom I may meet that stand 
in need of sympathy and such help as I am able to 
give. So many kind words and tokens of remem- 
brance or thoughtful kindness have come to me, even 
from those I have never met, but who have chanced to 
learn my needs, that I feel I owe the world a debt that 
calls for the best efforts I am able to put forth in help- 
ing the unfortunate, strengthening the weak, giving 
courage to the faint-hearted, or whispering hope to the 
doubting soul. Linked together as we all are by the 
common tie of brotherhood, children of one common 
Father who is continually casting his gifts upon us 
with an unsparing hand, if we cannot show our grati- 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 469 

tude directly to those through whom his gifts come to 
us, we can by bestowing all we are able to give upon 
those who stand in need of our help. Sometimes I 
think we are so placed that we seem compelled to re- 
ceive benefactions from sources that we cannot reach to 
repay them there, that we may feel so strongly our 
Indebtedness to some one that we shall be compelled by 
force of circumstances to pass the gift along to some 
one else, in order that we may realize more fully that 
we are brothers and sisters, and heirs together of the 
same great inheritance. 

" But I am wandering in thought away from the 
facts I have undertaken to relate. 

'* I remained in New York till late in October, before 
returning to my family that I had left in Westminster. 
None but those who have been called to endure a like 
separation can tell with what joy I once more greeted 
them, and found they had been kept and watched over 
by loving friends during my absence ; for the friends 
with whom my boys were left not only took them to 
their homes, but to their hearts also, as, in the case 
of each, a mother's place had been well and faithfully 
supplied. 

" After canvassing a few weeks more near home, I 
sent to New York for my goods, and commenced house- 
keeping again with my children on the 30th of Decem- 
ber. I kept them with me the remainder of the winter ; 
but, when warm weather again returned, they each went 
to the places they had lived at the previous summer, 
while I again went canvassing ; but this time I kept 
my home, and returned to it every two or three weeks 
through the season, not at any time going more than 
twenty miles away. 

" During this season, besides the books I sold, J 



470 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

obtained subscribers enough to ' The Independent ' to 
get me a sewing-machine, with the help of which J 
have been able to do much toward my family's support. 
1 went out canvassing, however, for a few weeks the 
third summer, but soon gave it up, and took up sewing, 
which I have continued more or less ever since. 

" During the fourth year and fifth summer my eldest 
boy was away from home all the time on a farm ; and 
as the two younger boys went to school, and I sat 
alone day after day employed with my needle, I felt 
that I was not doing enough. Something was continu- 
ally whispering, I ought to do more than this ; and 
yet I could see no way open in which to work other 
than the one I was then pursuing, because I felt that I 
wanted to be with my family, and keep them together 
as much as I could. During this period in May, 1871, 
I was employed by .the Universalist Publishing House 
to travel for them for four weeks, trying to enlarge the 
subscription-list of ' The Myrtle ' when it was made 
a weekly paper. In the course of those four weeks I 
visited fifty-four different places, comprising the larger 
towns and cities in all the New England States except 
Vermont, and called upon the pastor of the society in 
those places, or the one most interested in the Sunday 
school, to urge the claims of ' The Myrtle.' It was, you 
recollect, while employed in this capacity, that I was 
sent to New Haven, and called upon you ; and, though 
your personal acquaintance with me was slight, yet 
you began to urge me to take up the ministry for my 
calling. The night pre\dous I had passed with my old 
schoolmate at Antioch, Olympia Brown, and she had 
urged me to take up this work with every argument 
she could bring forward ; and when you, without know- 
ing what she had said, and knowing me so little, again 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 471 

m 

urged me to it, and as I left took my hand at parting, 
and thrice repeated ' preach ' to me, I could not help 
thinking, ' Can I do it ? Am I fitted for it ? Is it 
my duty ? Is that the way God calls me to work ? ' 

" The thought continually recurred to me, and so 
filled my mind as to keep me awake, and led me to 
arise early the Sunday morning following, and pen 
some reasons why I ought to take up the ministry. 

" After closing my labors for the publishing house, I 
returned home early in June with this thought waiting 
for an answer. I consulted with the minister filling the 
Universalist pulpit, asking his opinion, I felt so distrust- 
ful of my ability to perform the work. He assured me 
I need not doubt that, and I set myself about the task 
of writing a sermon ; but, seeing no opening to use it, 
did not finish it till the following winter, when I re- 
ceived a letter from Brother Closson, then preaching in 
Gardner, asking me to fill his pulpit for a Sunday, 
either by reading a sermon, or with one of my own; 
adding I was able to write one if inclined. This, then, 
is the opening, I thought, by which I am to enter the 
field. I finished the sermon I had commenced, wrote 
another, and preached them on Sunday, Jan. 28, 1872. 
This effort producing a favorable impression, Brother 
Closson wrote me, that, now I had put my hand to the 
plough, I must not look back, and asked me to supply 
again for him, which I did March 17. 

" The next summer I preached in West Acton and 
Waterbury, Conn., three times, and Richmond, N.H. ; 
in the winter at South Acton and Marlboro' twice ; and 
in the spring of 1873 at South Ashburnham once a fort- 
night for three months. I obtained a license in October 
of 1872, at the meeting of the State Convention in South 
Adams. Since then I have been at South Orange three 



472 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

times, at Fitchburg three, at Provincetown, South Ver- 
non, Vt., and Westfield, Mass. ; and the first day of last 
August, one year ago, I occupied the Unitarian pu'pit 
in Athol, to which place I had removed in May previ- 
ous. It was the desk my husband filled at the time 
of our marriage, and from it he had preached a sermon 
just seventeen years previous, from the same text 
which I chose for that day's thought. 

" Though I have been in the pulpit but twice since 
then, I still think the way will open for me to occupy 
it more constantly. Certain I am, if that is the course 
marked out for me, it will : if not, then I shall content 
myself in doing what my hands find to do ; and thus 
far, I have not lacked employment. 

" It is necessary for me to do something to help sup- 
port my family ; and I have been ready to do any thing 
that came to hand, that I was able to do, — have taken 
in washing, sewing, taught school, and during the 
month of June I was at the House of Correction on the 
State Farm at Oak Lawn, R.I., taking the place of a 
friend who was absent on a vacation. 

" In the spring of 1872 I was chosen a member of 
the School Committee of Westminster for three years ; 
but after serving one year, there were several reasons 
why I thought it best to resign. I acted as secretary 
during that year, and wrote the report. 

" Here let me say, in refutation of Dr. Clarke's theory, 
that there were two young men on the board with me ; 
and, during the days when our work was the same, 
they would manifest fatigue much sooner than I did. 
I walked more in visiting schools, and did not succumb 
to stormy weather so soon as they did. 

" While I was in the business of canvassing, too, I 
continued to walk day after day, for months, at the 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 473 

rate of eight or ten miles each day, without apparent 
injury to health, — during the iBrst year working as 
steadily, and walking as many miles, as any man I have 
known engaged in the business ; as those at whose 
houses I stopped, and who were well aware of my 
rambles, will bear me witness. The second summer, 
my strength seemed to fail ; but, during the days I spent 
at home, I was busy caring for my family, instead of 
resting as a man would, which may have been the 
reason. 

" While canvassing, I received the same compensa- 
tion that a man would ; but I have performed many 
kinds of labor where I was not paid more than two- 
thirds as much, and sometimes not half. 

" Had I spent my whole time in canvassing, 1 might 
possibly have supported my family wholly in that way ; 
but I felt that it was necessary that they should be 
together as much as possible ; and I have been assisted 
in their support by receiving aid from the Hanson Fund 
every year but the second since my husband passed 
away. That year, the one after I made my home in 
Westminster, I did not apply for it, and hoped I might 
be able to sustain myself without it, but found I could 
not, and keep my family together. Friends were very 
kind, and helped so much that I did not lack for the 
necessaries of life ; and at one of the meetings held in 
Boston by the ladies, to devise methods by which to 
raise the Murray Fund during the year 1870, a subscrip- 
tion was taken up in my behalf by kind and thoughtful 
friends, — prominent among them, Mrs. F. J. M. Whit- 
COMB, M.D., one who lets not her right hand know 
what her left doeth, and who seems never tiring in her 
efforts to bless humanity. Others gave too, whose 
names are held in grateful remembrance ; and many 



474 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

whose names I have never known lent their aid in fill- 
ing the purse which came so unexpectedly and yet so 
opportunely to gladden my heart, and set my mini at 
rest in regard to the problem, ' Wherewithal shall my 
children be fed and clothed ? ' 

" Once since then, two years ago, have the ladies of 
the Centenary Aid Association come to my aid. 
Through their kind assistance, and the thoughtful help 
of many friends, my path has been strewn with bless- 
ings, and we have never lacked the ordinary comforts 
of life." 

Mrs. O'Daniels received a Hcense to preach from the 
Massachusetts State Convention of Universalists, in 
October, 1872. She is an acceptable speaker ; and, it 
is hoped, will be ordained, and permanently engaged 
in the glorious work of preaching the everlasting gos- 
pel. 

The following paragraph from a Western paper men- 
tions another woman of the century, who preaches : — 

" Elgin Association have replied to a recent appli- 
cation from Miss E. E. Newman for approbation to 
preach, by the following commendation : — 

" ' Without in any way indorsing the idea of women 
becoming pastors, in the usual sense of that term, yet, 
from what we know of Miss Newman's qualifications, 
we do, as an association, commend her to those desir- 
ing *such help as she can give ; and, in Paul's words 
concerning Phebe of Cenchrpa, commend Miss E. E. 
Newman, as a servant of the Church, to the confidence 
of the churches, as one fitted to preach Christ.' " 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 475 

A New York paper thus refers to another woman 
preacher among the Methodists : — 

" Port Jervis, Nov. 22. — Mrs. LoWRiE, a converted 
actress, is conducting a series of revival meetings in 
the Drew Methodist Episcopal Church in this village. 
The meetings are attended by thousands of people, and 
over five hundred converts have been made. The 
number includes many wealthy and prominent residents. 
Mrs. Lowrie is an eloquent speaker, and an excellent 
vocalist. Her discourses are delivered while she walks 
about the house. They are full of extravagant and im- 
passioned passages, interspersed with weird hymns and 
wild gestures. She wields a powerful influence over 
the large congregation that assemble to hear her, and 
her voice is frequently drowned by their shouts. Two 
avowed infidels, one a contributor to the Boston ' In- 
vestigator,' are among her converts. A leading atheist 
asked for prayers on Saturday night, amid a scene of 
wild excitement. The church will not hold all that 
apply for admittance. People come twenty miles to 
hear her ; and so many train-hands from tlie Erie Rail- 
way attend the service that new men have been em- 
ployed to fill their places. 

" Mrs. Lowrie is a lady about thirty-five years of 
age, and shows the effect of the hard work she is doing." 

AMA.NDA M. Way was born near Winchester, Ind., 
July 10, 1829. Mrs. Burleigh in speaking of her,' 
says of her, " The stanch advocate of progress, the 
friend of the slave, the champion of woman's rights, 
priestess of temperance, indefatigable worker for the 
Sanitary Commission, and tireless nurse in the hospital, 

> Woman's Journal, vol. i No. 42 



476 "WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

and on the field. It was good to look into her face, 
to listen to the tones of her deep, rich voice ; for in 
the face was written the record of that noble life, — 
written as only deeds can write, so plainly that not 
even the most untaught could fail to read it aright, — 
while her voice told unmistakably, not only of sym- 
pathy and tenderness, but of strength and courage. . . . 
In the organization of the Good Templars, — the first, 
by the way, that recognized the equality of woman in 
carrying forward the great reform, — she held one office 
after another, till she had filled all, when she was 
elected to the highest office in the National Lodge, the 
first woman who ever held it. . . . Her beneficent life 
is the most eloquent argument in favor of the enfran- 
chisement of woman, her varied activity and extended 
usefulness, the illustration of woman's sphere." 

She is now a preacher among the Methodists. 

Elizabeth M. Powell was the acceptable preacher 
for the Free Congregational Society in Florence, Mass., 
in 1871. She has since married, and is not now a pastor. 

Rev. Fannie U. Roberts was a successful preacher. 
The " Gospel Banner " of Maine thus refers to her : — 

" Last week we mentioned the passing away of this 
excellent Christian woman. Rev. S. S. Fletcher had 
promised that he would furnish an account of the par- 
ticulars of her death. The following has been received 
from her sister, which Brother Fletcher desires pub- 
lished rather than words from his own pen. The letter 
was written in Winona, Minn., the place where Sister 
Roberts died. 

Winona, Sept. 3, 1875. 
« Rev. G. W. Quinby. Dear Sir, — My sister, Rev. 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 477 

P'annie U. Roberts, formerly pastor of the First Uni- 
versalist church, Kittery, Me., whose ordination ser- 
mon you preached Feb. 5, 1874, departed this life 
Aug. 26, 1875, of bronchial consumption, aged forty 
one years and six months. 

" She preached to her parish until she lost her voice, 
then she had her pulpit supplied to the end of the year. 
When she sent in her resignation the society generous- 
ly voted not to accept it, but gave her three months 
vacation. She came to Minnesota for her health, and 
arrived at my home in Winona, May 15. But the 
climate failed to benefit her, and she gradually declined 
until death came to her relief. 

" She was born at South Berwick, Me. ; was the 
daughter of Frederick and Hannah R. Cogswell, both 
preachers of the Christian church ; was married in 
early life, and was a devoted wife and mother. At the 
age of twenty-eight she experienced religion, and 
joined the Congregational church at Northwood, N.H.,, 
where she then resided, and was superintendent for 
some time of the Baptist Sunday school. 

"From a child she was imbued with the spirit of 
Universalism, and entertained more or less of the Uni- 
versalist views. There was something grand and noble 
in the idea that God, in his infinite goodness and his 
boundless love, was to raise man from his degradation, 
and by a process of purification elevate him to be joint 
heir with Christ, and that this fatherly love embraced 
the whole human race. 

*' In 1870 she commenced lecturing on moral and 
intellectual subjects, after which she accepted the invi- 
tations extended by the Kensington and Wells Univer- 
salist societies, and began supplying for them in the 
spring of 1871, and continuing unti' she accepted the 



478 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

call from Kittery, Me., where she remained until April, 
1875. 

" During all her weakness and pain she was never 
heard to murmur or complain, but was always more 
thoughtful for others than herself. She was beloved by 
every one that knew her. She has left one son, three 
step-daughters, and brothers and sisters, to mourn their 
irreparable loss ; but we hope for a bright reunion in a 
fairer world. 

" Sister was well aware of her approaching dissolu- 
tion, and made all necessary preparations ; said she was 
not afraid to die, and, if she could not get well so as to 
lead a life of usefulness, she would rather go now ; said 
she felt her heavenly Father near her. By her desire 
we sent for Rev. Mr. Tuttle of Minneapolis, to attend 
the funeral ; but he could not come. Rev. Mr. McKin- 
ley (Methodist) of Winona preached a sermon from 
2 Cor. V. 1. We buried her remains in Woodlawn 
, Cemetery. 

" Sister Fannie wished me to request you to write her 
obituary, and said, ' Tell him I die in the faith,' and it 
was what she had upheld ever since she came here. I 
have now given you the outlines that you may know 
the facts, and to direct you in what you wish to say. 
" Truly yours, 

" Mrs. Lizzie Waite.'' 

We would say that Sister Roberts in mental vigor 
and Christian goodness was no ordinary woman. But 
few clergymen in any denomination could write a 
better sermon, or offer a more effectual impromptu 
speech ; while she had the ability to win not only the 
respect, but the warm friendship, of every member of 
her parish. Rev. S. S. Fletcher of Yarmouth, who 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 479 

knew her well, testifies as follows, relative to her abil- 
ity and Christian goodness : — 

" You cannot overstate the love and esteem in which 
our dear Sister Roberts was held by all the societies to 
which she had ever ministered. She was eloquent and 
instructive as a preacher, and most efficient in all the 
pastoral relations, whether in the Sunday school as 
leader of the Bible class, at the bedside of the sick, or 
in the homes of the afflicted. 

" She had the power, as only few ministers have, of 
attaching her people to her by winning their affection. 
She gave to them the love of a consecrated minister, 
and received in ratio as she gave. Mrs. Roberts never 
preached to any society whose preference would not 
have retained her services. She was ever modest, and 
the sweet dignity of her womanly nature shone out in 
all her acts ; and, whatever may be said or thought of a 
woman ministry, with Mrs. Roberts it proved an entire 
success. . . . 

" My own heart beats responsive to the grief of 
those who knew her best ; and I sorrow that we shall 
see her face and listen to the sweet sound of her voice 
no more on earth." 

MEMORIAL SERVICES. 

" Beother QumBY, — On Sunday afternoon the 
12th inst., services were held at the Universalist church 
in Kittery, in memory of the former and well-beloved 
pastor, Rev. Mrs. F. U. Roberts. 

" The church was beautifully decorated with flowers, 
and crowded to its utmost limits. Every inch of space, 
even to the steps of the platform, was occupied by the 
friends who gathered there to testify their love and re- 



480 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

spect for the faithful pastor and noble woman who had 
labored with them for several years, and until a few 
months before her death. 

" The services, which were conducted by Miss Cabo- 
^>INB E. Angell, assisted by Rev. S. S. Hebberd of 
Portsmouth, were appropriate and impressive. 

" Miss Angell is a recent graduate of Canton Theo- 
logical School, and for a few months past has occupied 
the pulpit rendered vacant by the illness of Mrs. Rob- 
erts. Her excellent sermon was a fitting tribute to the 
departed pastor, whom she had never met, but whose 
worth she readily comprehended from the hearts of the 
people. 

" One of the most beautiful features of the interest- 
ing service was that the memorial tribute to one who 
had manifested a deep interest in the welfare of her sex, 
and honored it by her work in the ministry, should be 
spoken by woman's lips. Nothing could have been 
more pleasing to the spirit of our departed sister, who 
has left warm friends to treasure a beautiful memory of 
her work in the Master's service." 

Rev. Mrs. Roberts was made a justice of the peace 
by the Governor of Maine, and as such officiated at the 
marriage of her son. 

Miss Angell has since been ordained. 

Maggie N. Van Cott has achieved a wide reputa- 
tion as a successful preacher among the Methodists. 
She has been licensed, but not as yet ordaine^i ; but 
she has done a marvellous work in winning the atten- 
tion of men and women to religious themes. A sketch 
of her life and labors has been published in Cincin- 
nati,^ the introduction to which has been ably written 

1 By Hitchcock and Walden. 




MKS. MAGGIE N. VANCUTT. 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 483 

by Bishop Gilbert Haven and Rev. David Sherman. 
The book is graphic, and full of statements and inci- 
dents, interesting especially to the sect to which Mrs. 
Van Cott belongs. The closing chapter, on the right 
of women to preach, is valuable for all. Mrs. Van 
Cott is a native of New York City, born March 25, 
1830. Her maiden name was Newton. She is of 
Enghsh and Scotch descent. Since there is a volume 
concerning her and her labors, it is less needful that 
much be told here concerning her. A New York illus- 
trated paper in 1875 spoke thus of her : — 

" An interesting revival is now in progress at the 
Clinton-street Methodist Church, Newark, N.J. It is 
presided over by the Widow Van Cott, whose portrait, 
together with a number of scenes occurring during one 
of the meetings, are given in our present number. 
She has entered upon this new field of missionary 
labor under the prestige of decided revival triumphs 
in Newburg, N.Y., and elsewhere; and, judging from 
the true religious zeal manifested by her in the conduct 
of these meetings, is destined to accomplish a great 
amount of good in the community at large. Many 
touching incidents are continually occurring, that tend 
to give a great and overawing solemnity to the scene. 
Old men whose locks have been whitened by the frosts 
of many winters, as also the young man just starting 
upon a solution of this great life-problem, the matron 
and the maid, all join in one commoTi supplication for 
that ' peace which passeth all underptanding.' 

" Our artist has given striking illustrations of some 
of the incidents that occurred during a recent visit to 
the above-named place of worship. One old lady, be- 
coming convinced of the errors of her sinful ways, 



484 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

rises from her seat in the body of the chuich, and 
approaches the altar, where, upon her knees, she 
asserts her thorough conversion. Another is a young 
girl, who, though fully aware of her depraved and sin- 
ful condition, requires to be led to the altar, that she 
may receive divine pardon. There is also presented 
the case of a young man who stands upon the brink 
of salvation, ' almost persuaded,' and by whose side 
kneels this spirited evangelist, who is invoking the 
divine blessing upon so worthy a determination. The 
portrait of IVIrs. Van Cott exhibits an exceedingly 
plain but scrupulously neat woman : a wealth of shin- 
ing brown hair, tastefully arranged in wavy crimps of 
the old-time style, over her temples, gives a highly 
spiritual cast to her features. Her voice is powerful 
and firm, kept well under control ; and, when she rises 
in the pulpit to deliver the opening exhortation, the 
influence exerted over the crowded audience is simply 
wonderful. Her views upon religious subjects are 
broad and expansive, and she possesses a well-defined 
sense of human obligation. So straightforward, plain, 
but forcible, are her arguments in support of the ' new 
life,' that even the most case-hardened sinner is forced 
to admit the truthfulness of her tenets. Undoubtedly 
her power for the accomplishment of much good lies in 
her magnetism, and the speedy establishment of a sym- 
pathetic current between herself and the worshippers. 
The meetings over which she presides — and is of a 
consequence the central point of attraction — are char- 
acterized by a deep religious feeling, a quiet but per- 
sistent searching after hidden truths ; and numerous 
are the self-confessed transgressors of the moral laws, 
who have espoused the cause of the ' meek and lowly 
Nazarene,' and been divested of the robes of dark 
oess and sin, under her exhortations. 



WOMEN PREACHEES. 485 

" She was, until late years, herself a weak and sinful 
woman : consequently she has a full appreciation of the 
many diflBculties which sinners must experience in their 
attempts to get out of the old ruts. After the death 
of her husband, who was a prominent merchant in 
New York, she for a time conducted his business, and 
exhibited considerable executive ability. To use her 
own language : ' It was right under the shadow of 
old John-street Church that the sudden conviction 
came upon me, and I gave myself up completely to the 
power of God.' 

" Her greatest successes thus far have been confined 
to conversions among the working classes, and have had 
the effect of encouraging her to renewed exertions in 
the provinces. Her efforts may be properly considered 
as being supplemental to the more extensive work of 
her co-laborers in the field of religion. Moody and San- 
key." 

From the book above mentioned the following is 
given as illustrative of the old prejudice against women 
speaking in public prayer-meetings, which is still too 
prevalent. One cold, snowy day, Mrs. Van Cott 
passed through Fulton Street. " So terrible was the 
storm, that she saw no other lady on the street, when 
presently her eye caught the sign of the noonday 
prayer-meeting. Looking at her watch, she knew she 
had time to drop in, get a blessing from heaven, and 
reach her desired place of business. About forty 
gentlemen were present, and she the only lady. The 
prayers were glorious, the testimonies grand, and her 
heart began to feel the glow of Jesus' love. Five 
minutes before one o'clock she arose, and occupied 
three minutes testifying of the power of Christ to 
save. She was sweetly blessed. The meeting closed ; 



486 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

and, as thej descended the stairs, she was met by one 
who, after considerable clearing of his throat, and a 
polite bow, said, 'Ah, madam, ah — we — do not — 
ahem 1 ' " Quick as thought the truth flashed through 
her mind that she was a woman, and had dared to 
speak of her precious Saviour in the presence of men. 
She caught his words, and continued them : ' You do 
not permit ladies to speak in your meetings.' 

" ' I won't say permit^' was the reply ; ' but it is 
strictly a men's meeting; and there are plenty of 
places elsewhere where women can speak.' — 'I am 
aware of it, sir, thank God I but I thought I felt the 
Sph'it of the Lord; and I am taught that, where the 
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Please excuse 
me, sir : I will never intrude again.' 

" ' Oh ! no intrusion, madam ; come again.' — 'Thank 
you ; I will when I can go nowhere else.' 

" As she passed on, choked with deep emotion, a gen- 
tleman stepped to her side, and said, ' Don't weep, 
lady. I know what you have passed through ; but they 
have dealt gently with you, I have known them to tell 
ladies of great refinement and talent to stop and sit down, 
when the room has been full of people ; but, as true 
as you live, I feel that that is just what the Fulton- 
street meeting wants to make it a power greater than 
it ever has been." Happily ]\Irs. Van Cott belonged 
to that large and fervent body of Christians which does 
permit women to speak, and which has licensed Anna 
Oliver, Harriet D. Walker, and others ; but as yet 
ordination has been conferred on none. It is said that 
the Bishop of California refused to ordain Mrs. Van 
Cott, simply because she was a woman, though, aa 
stated, she had brought 1,735 persons into the church ; 
travelled 7,208 miles in the Master's service : written in 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 487 

jDe year 650 letters, attended 829 religious meetings, 
and preached 399 sermons. During one year she had 
spent 1,779 hpurs in religious meetings. Though all 
this evidence of zeal and success fails to gain her an 
ordination at the hands of man, God shows through her 
how a woman, even without ordination, can do the 
work of an evangelist. Other women are following in 
her footsteps ; and the time is not far distant when they 
will find all doors open for them, and such men as 
Bishops Haven and Simpson ready to ordain them. 

The Episcopalians of England and America have had 
noble women workers in their churches, and a class of 
devoted women like sisters of charity among them ; 
but it would be deemed sacrilege by many in those 
churches for a woman to perform sacerdotal duties. 
" The Woman's Journal " (vol. v. p. 85) says, " Mrs. 
Stanton throws down a trump card in the proposition 
that no woman should attend a church where they 
refuse to admit a woman preacher to the pulpit on 
account of her sex. If this were carried out, every 
church would have to succumb, as women compose the 
majority of the audiences." 

" The Congregationalist " said in 1872, " If any 
woman has a call to the pulpit, and can get people to 
hear her preach, we would bid her God speed." That 
possibly was the ground Harriet Beecher Stowe took 
when asking a man who said he had a call to preach, 
" whether he noticed that people had a call to hear 
him." 

Even the Swedenborgians have been appealed to on 
the subject of a woman ministry. As Mrs. M. A. K. 
Benchley appealed by printed circular to the Episco- 
palians of New York in 1874, so Dr. Harriet Clisby 
previously addressed the " New Jerusalem Conven- 



488 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

tion " held in Boston in June, 1872, saying among 
other forcible words, " The world needs women, neeils 
their thought, their ministry, their active co-operation in 
the performance of uses. Beneath the calm of their 
pure lives is an indwelling fire, though sleeping. Touch 
it, light it with the hopes of your own aspirations, and 
have them as co-workers in the work of God before 
you." 1 

The Christians — or Ohrist-'ians as they are popularly 
but incorrectly termed — have among them several 
woman ministers, ordained with public services within 
the last few years. In 1868 or 1869, the lamented 
Richard F. Fuller, Esq. (brother of Margaret Fuller 
d'Ossoli and Chaplain Arthur B. Fuller), then a lawyer 
in Boston, informed me of this lady, as a speaker in 
repute in that religious body, with which he was him- 
self connected, and spoke earnestly in favor of a regu- 
larly ordained woman ministry. He did not live to be 
present in the flesh at her ordination ; but she is now a 
successful laborer, duly commissioned, in or near New 
Bedford, Mass. I refer to Rev. Ellen G. Gustin, who 
was ordained at the annual meeting of the Miami Chris 
tian Conference held in Newton, O., in October, 1873. 
Mrs. Emi B. Frank of Indianapolis was ordained ; 
Elder Limington offered the ordaining prayer, and 
Prof. Weston of Autioch College gave the charge, while 
Elder McCuDock, President of the Conference, gave 
the right hand of fellowship. A correspondent of the 
" Woman's Journal " said, " Her ordination had been 
decided on without a dissenting voice ; and many of the 
ministers present gave public expression of approval of 
women in the ministry. One of the oldest and most 
influential said. * God has given to many women an 

I Woman's Journal, vol. iL p. 202. 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 489 

eloquence that should be used for Christ's cause on 
earth : let us rejoice to welcome then as co-laborers 
with us.' Another said, ' The world groaned with 
error and sin. One of its most eminent errors was that 
it had attempted to run all the interests of life on a 
purely masculine basis; excluding from public recog- 
nition the heart and intellect of wife, mother, and 
sister.' A resolution was passed pledging the Confer- 
ence to use its utmost efforts to open the way for young 
men and women to enter the ministry." ^ 

The Unitarians have had thus far but two regularly 
ordained and settled women ministers, though there are 
several who frequeDtly officiate in Unitarian pulpits, 
who would be licensed preachers, doubtless, if that 
denomination made provision for such laborers, and 
who ought to be outwardly set apart by " the laying-on 
of hands," since they are evidently already ordained by 
the Spirit. Among these occasional preachers may be 
mentioned Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. Caroline H. 
Dall, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, Miss Mary F. East- 
man, and Miss Harriet M. Lunt. The two ordained 
women ministers mentioned above were also settled 
pastors, the one in Brooklyn, Conn., the other in Mans- 
field, Mass. Both are freed from pastoral duties now ; 
the one. Rev. Mary H. Graves, remaining in her 
Massachusetts home after recent missionary efforts at 
the West, supplying parishes occasionally, and seeking 
to establish health, never very firm. I can speak per- 
sonally of her commendable progress, from a writer in 
Sunday-school and other periodicals, to the studies 
and labors of the gospel ministry, against the tide of 
early prejudices in which she shared, and the discour- 
agement cf weak f^ame and needful arduous prepara- 

1 M. F. T. uj Woman's Journal, vol. v., p. 362. 



490 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

tion. A lover of literature, a bibliopolist without 
being a bookworm, with her untiring industiy and 
ready pen she has done good service in arraying facta 
on various occasions. She was ordained in the Uni- 
tarian church at Mansfield, Mass., Dec. 14, 1871, on 
which occasion the services were as follows: Invoca- 
don by Rev. S. W. Bush, reading of Scriptures by Rev. 
Wilham Brown, sermon by Rev. W. H. Cudworth, 
occasional hymn by Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, ordain- 
ing prayer by Rev. Fielder Israel, charge by Rev. J. 
11. Wiggin, hand of fellowship by Rev. Celia Burleigh, 
address to the people by Rev. Olympia Brown, closing 
prayer by Rev. J. D. Pierce. 

Clara Maria Babcock, herself the daughter of a 
Unitarian clerg3^man, Rev. WiUiam Babcock, studied at 
the Unitarian Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., and 
afterward at Heidelberg, Germany, where she was mar- 
ried to Rev. Herman Bisbee, and both were afterward 
preachers in a Unitarian church in Stepney Green, 
London. After the death of her husband, who was a 
preacher in South Boston, she was ordained, and is now 
preaching acceptably. 

The first ordained woman minister among the Uni- 
tarians, Rev. Cetja Burleigh, has recently passed on 
from the city of Syracuse to the long and welcome and 
blessed rest of the great hereafter. Her graceful 
form and soul-lit countenance will be long remembered ; 
and the beauty of her spirit, as well shown in her 
words of wisdom and love, will not soon be forgotten. 
Her memory is precious wherever she was known, as 
the faithful teacher, the admirable writer, tlie eloquent 
preacher. It was the privilege of the writer to read the 
Scriptures and offer the opening prayer on the occasion 
of her ordination in the quiet, lovt v village of Brook- 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 491 

lyn, Conn. I said at the Woman's Congress in 1875, 
" Amid ' the golden glory of October days ' some of us 
who are here to-day saw her, in the beauty of her ripe 
womanhood, and the maturity of her mental powers, 
assume the important oflBce of the Christian minister ; 
and now once more, ' amid the golden glory of October 
days,' we are together, thinking of her, and wishing for 
her again a field of usefulness commensurate with her 
poT\er8. God has granted the prayer, even before it 
was uttered ; and her parish is composed of those who, 
like herself, have entered the realms of immortality. 
Her patience and her Christian trust are before us in 
the lustre of a bright example. May her mantle fall 
upon another woman worthy to wear it, and the pulpit 
once consecrated by the presence of a Samuel J. May, 
and further honored by woman ministers of marvellous 
grace of manner, and winning melody of speech, and 
wondrous profundity of thought, be again worthily 
filled ! " On the memorable day of her ordination, her 
former pastor, Rev. John W. Chad wick, preached the 
sermon. Rev. William P. Tilden oiBFered the ordaining 
prayer, the charge to the pastor was given by Rev. 
William Potter, the welcome to the ministry by Rev. 
Oscar Clute, and the address to the people by Mrs. 
Julia Ward Howe. The ordination hymn was from 
the pen of Mr. Chadwick, whose own ordination hymn 
had been from the pen of Mrs. Burleigh's husband, 
whose expressed wish was the cause in part of her 
engaging in the work of the ministry. This mention 
of her may fitly be closed with her own words, spoken 
when delivering a memorial discourse on the anniver- 
sary of the death of the saintly and sainted Samuel J 
May. " Is it not to him," she said, " that I, a woman, 
owe the privilege of standing here to-day as your 



492 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

pastor, aud offering this tribute to his memoiy ? Let 
us show our love and reverence for him by living such 
lives as he would wish us to live, by promoting the 
interests which he held dear ; by doing our utmost to 
secure to every human being the right to think his own 
thoughts, live his own life, to own no master but the 
truth, whose mission it is not to enslave, but to make 
free. So living we shall be one with him and with all 
the brave and true spirits of the past ; our souls will be 
open to their influence ; we shall be their co-workers 
and God's strong helpers, carrying forward that for 
which the worlds were made, — the uplifting and en- 
nobling of humanity." 

" The Jewish Messenger " states that " as yet, the 
woman's rights movement has not reached the syna- 
gogue. No Jewess is, to our knowledge, emulous of 
Miss Smiley the fair Quakeress, or Mrs. Hanaford the 
Universalist, and desires to preach to her brethren. 
The preaching propensity may exist among Jewesses ; 
but it is confined to the family circle, or to some of our 
ladies' societies. . . . This may be an evidence of their 
degeneracy, or of their common-sense." Whereupon 
the " Christian Register " remarks, " But we advise 
the ' Messenger ' to beware of premature exultation. 
When human nature has had its perfect work among 
the daughters of Israel, some of the kinswomen of 
Miriam and Deborah may entirely eclipse the Univer- 
salist and Presbyterian prophetesses." 

The latter title was probably given to Miss Smiley 
because she made her first notable appearance in Rev. 
Dr. Cuyler's pulpit in Brooklyn, N.Y. She still weara 
her Quaker garb, but she is certainly not to be num- 
bered with that people, since she has submitted to 
water baptism from Rev. Mr. Pentecost, and that is in 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 493 

direct opposition to the views and practices of Quakers 
But she is doing a good work in the pulpits of the 
churches usually closed to women. The writer had 
great pleasure in hearing her as she stood in the Con- 
gregational and Baptist pulpits of New Haven, Conn., 
and trusts that niiore women of her biblical scholarship, 
and personal ability in voice and manner, will stand in 
those pulpits otherwise practically closed to women, till 
in time they will be as fully open as others to the true 
successors of the clergywomau of Cenclu-ea. 

Reference has not been made to the fact that women 
preach or speak in public on sabbath days among the 
Spiritualists. Such women as Mrs. Augusta Cooper 
Bristol and Mrs. Mary F. Davis, and many others 
of noble life and Christian sympathies, speaking thus,, 
cannot fail to exert a mighty influence for good. But» 
as neither men nor women seem to be set apart for 
preaching or pastoral service among this people, their 
public workers are not here enumerated. 

Among the Baptists, — the Calvinistic sort, — no 
women ministers are known ; but women speak upon 
missionary topics, conduct missionary and educational 
meetings, and are working grandly so far as opportu- 
nity is given. Among them I may mention Mrs. Au- 
gusta M. HovEY of Newton, INIass., the accomplished 
wife of a professor in Newton Theological Institution, 
whose eloquent words stirred a large audience to inter- 
est in missions, one afternoon in New Haven, Conn., as 
she spoke from the same pulpit in which Miss Smiley 
afterward stood. 

Jessie, a Scotch peasant, whom Mrs. Carolinb A. 
SoULB recently met at Dundee, when she was told by 
Mrs. Margaret E. Parker that her guest Mrs. Soule waa 
a preacher sometimes, made answer, " The woman of 



494 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Samaria was the first missionary;" thus giving, though 
a stanch Presbyterian of the John Knox stamp, the 
assent of her soul to the right of woman to preach 
Christ. And to whom was the message given, " Go 
tell my disciples and Peter that the Lord has risen," 
but to those women who were — 

" Last at the cross aud earliest at the grave " 

of our Saviour ? Who more fitted, more worthy, more 
ready, than woman, to preach " Jesus and the resurrec- 
tion " ? The coming preacher who is to gain the ear of 
the churches is a woman, — not one woman of any 
church, but the consecrated, God-gifted women preach- 
ers of all the churches. Rev. S. P. Putnam in " The 
Liberal Christian " once said truly, " Sure I am that 
the voice of woman will be heard in the pulpit of the 
future; for she has many things to say out of the heart 
of God that man does not know, aud of which he 
cannot tell us [men ministers]. She will speak things 
hidden from the foundation of the world. Eve has 
been too long silent. She must now tell us of her 
passionate experiences, her hopes, her aspirations, her 
dreams, her longings, her failures, and her triumphs, in 
the long, long history of the world. She has labored 
through many a generation with an unspoken heroism ; 
but now the music of her utterance must be heard, 
laden with the riches of a wondrous growth that has 
yet been but faintly comprehended. Vast and beauti- 
ful are the visions that God has revealed to her self- 
sacrificing spirit ; and the world, by means of their 
expression, will be lifted up to a diviner life, to a more 
tender comprehension of the universe, and a finer feel- 
ing of its immanent glory. The pulpit will never 
reach its sublimest power until woman takes her place 



WOMEN PREACHERS. 495 

in it as the free and equal interpreter of God. The 
priest must give way to the tender soul, as well as 
manly intellect. The desk must reverberate the full 
heart of humanity, or its eloquence will become a van- 
ishing sound." 

This chapter may be finished with " the sure word 
of prophecy." The on-rolling years will bring the 
triumph of truth. The kingdoms of this world must 
become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, for 
" the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it ; " and, in the 
great redemptive and uplifting work of the future, 
woman shall have her due proportion, and afterward 
the righteous recompense of reward that must follow 
as she beholds humanity purified and blest. 

The call of the age is to action, — to grand, concert- 
ed, consecrated action. Women are called to labor both 
by themselves and with each other, for the elevation of 
the race, for the enfranchisement of every soul, for the 
breaking of every fetter, till all the children of our 
God are rejoicing in " the liberty wherewith Christ 
maketh free." This is an age of progress ; and, in the 
light of its centennial glory, our country has the great- 
est of all reason to be glad in the advance which its 
women have made. The mighty tide of human progress 
is sweeping on with resistless force, and no man shall 
ever see its ebb. Like that river of eternal love that 
floweth from beneath the throne of God, this sweep of 
human advancement must be continuous and perpetual. 

And the grandest movement of our age is the move- 
ment in behalf of woman. It is the grandest of all 
the ages. By the larger part of the Christian world 
woman is reverenced in the Virgin Mother ; and by 
the rest is she revered in the feminine characteristics of 
the immaculate Son. Shall any true woman, any Chris- 



496 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

tian woman, be idly a spectator, and not grandly a 
worker, in the movement of to-day ? 

" We are liviug, we are dwelling 

In a grand and awful time ; ' ' 
and 

" In an age on agea telling 

To be living is sublime. " 

How much more sublime to be an actor in the moral 
drama which attracts the absorbed attention of the 
good and true, that sitting above all conflicts, in the 
realms of peace and blessedness, behold the coming 
triumph of the Right ! Our dear ones are there. And 
by all the love they had for Christ and for his cause, 
for God and for humanity, the appeal is here made to 
every reader, that you not only bid the work of redemp- 
tion " God speed," but that you lend to all efforts for 
woman's advancement your heartiest effort and your 
earnest prayer. To every earnest woman, with loving 
heart and active brain, comes this appeal : — 

" Up! it is the Almighty's rally : 

God's own arm hath need of thine." 







CHAPTER XIV. 



WOMEN MISSIONARIES. 



Ann H. Judson — Harriet Newell — Sarah B. Judson — Henrietta 
Shuck — Women connected with the various Church Boards of 
Foreign and Home Missions — Woman's Centenary Association — 
Mrs. Howe's Peace Mission to England, &c. 

" What if to heathen lauds afar the word of life he bear? 
In that high work of sacrifice still woman hath her share." 

Mary M. Chase. 

" Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." — Mark 
xvi. 15. 

EVER since the Christian era began, women have 
been missionaries, even in the special sense of 
that word, as much as men. They have been propa- 
gandists of the Christian faith ; they have been bene- 
factors to the race in the work of disseminating the 
truth that maketh wise unto salvation, by labors as 
teachers among the heathen, and, by their pens and 
voices in nominally Christian lands, stimulating those 



498 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

who were in the foreign field. Of all the many 
Christian sects, none have so fully acknowledged the 
equality of woman, and her consequent right to engage 
in all church work and missionary service, as that branch 
of Zion known as the Society of Friends. A writer in 
" Macmillan's Magazine " thus truthfully refers to this 
fact : — 

" With regard to the vexed question of the rights of 
women, the position of women is undoubtedly higher 
among the Friends than in any other society. From 
George Fox's time an equal place has been assigned 
them in the family of God as in the human family, in 
the church as well as in human society. Their divine 
commission, ' Go tell my brethren that I ascend to my 
Father and their Father, to my God and their God,' 
has been recognized and narrowed down by no human 
limitation. Without committing ourselves to the bold 
rationalizing exegesis of the Quakeress, who, when 
hard pressed by certain Pauline texts relative to women 
keeping silence in the church, replied, ' Thee knows 
Paul was not partial to females,' we may say that the 
Friends alone have proved themselves free from the old 
tendency to stick to the letter of Scripture, and sin 
against its di\ane progressive spirit, binding women, 
after nineteen centuries of freedom, with precisely the 
old worn-out bandages and restrictions which were 
necessary to preserve social order whon first Christian- 
ity enfranchised women, and proclaimed the equality 
of the sexes. And perhaps that laborious Society for 
the Protection of Providence, which exists in our midst, 
might study the result with advantage, and might e^en 
learn in time, that, as we do not make laws to prevent 
weak-armed men from being blacksmiths (to quote from 



WOMEN MISSIONARIES. 499 

John Stuart Mill), so we need not in the long-run make 
restrictions to keep women from spheres for which 
Providence has unfitted them ; nature being abundantlj* 
strong enough to preserve the order of the sexes with- 
out the help of our crutches. Free to exercise any ex- 
ceptional gift in public, and taking their regular share 
in the business of the church, the Quaker women are 
profoundly domestic, though with a certain largeness 
of mind, and absence of feminine littleness, which 
doubtless springs from their wider training." 

It has been found by those men who have been mis- 
sionaries in foreign lands, that, accompanied by women, 
their cause is more prosperous, for the wives of the 
men missionaries can often gain access to women as 
they cannot ; and if the character of the women marks 
the standard of society in every place, as it does, then 
it is vastly important that the women be reached. The 
women who have, with rare self-sacrifice, left home 
and native land for a home in heathendom, with mis- 
sionary husbands, are as much missionaries as the men, 
though the latter have been ordained and are salaried. 
The women have been ordained by the providence of 
God, and in their spirits ; and their reward is in heaven. 

It is almost needless to affirm that Mohammedan 
women need the help of their Christian sisters as 
much as the women of idolatrous nations. A writer 
in " Fraser's Magazine" tells the story of the need of 
women missionaries in the following statement con- 
cerning Mohammedan women : — 

" In any serious question of reform among Mohamme- 
dans, the position of women must occupy a prominent 
place. We are not now speaking of polygamy, but of 



500 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

the seclusion of women, the abnegation of their influ- 
ence, and, as a corollary of this, the rearing of the 
entire population in frivolity, ignorance, and vice. 
The Koran bids men 'respect women of whom they 
are born ; ' but a few isolated precepts like this are 
powerless against its general tenor. The Turkish 
women shuffle unnoticed through the streets in their 
yellow slippers, or sit for hours in the meadows of the 
' sweet waters,' their bright ferejehs gleaming like a 
party-colored bed of tulips. If their owner is a man 
of mark, they are taken for an airing in a gilded coach, 
or they are huddled like sheep by their black wardens 
into a separate pen on the little steamers which pant 
busily across the Golden Horn. The life of a Turkish 
woman is vapid and meaningless ; she is as ignorant 
as a child : yet even the grand vizierat is often at the 
disposal of harem intrigue. And, if we would discover 
the canker which lies at the root of Turkish society, we 
must seek it in the practice which condemns the chil- 
dren of both sexes to the vicious atmosphere of the 
harem during the most plastic years of hfe. The origin 
of this treatment of women we shall find not in the 
dictates of Oriental jealousy, but in the teaching of 
the Koran. The divine book by no means ignores the 
existence of woman. It lays down most careful and 
minute rules for her walk in hfe. But it treats her 
rather as an adjunct to man than as an independent, 
responsible being. Obedience is the corner-stone, — 
obedience to him who rules over her. Home is her 
proper place ; but if she goes abroad she must veil 
her face and breast, — nay, some say, even her hands. 
' Speak unto thy wives and thy daughters, and the 
wives of the true believers,' says the Koran, ' that they 
cast their outer garments over them when they walk 



WOMEN MISSIONARIES. 501 

abroad. Believing women must not discover their orna- 
ments ; . . . and let them thi-ow their veils over theii 
bosoms.' It is in such light matters as these that we 
see the difficulty of a change in the current of Eastern 
thought. It is not merely the inveterate habit of 
centuries, though this is stronger than law, but also a 
matter of religion. The Spanish lady may exchange 
her mantiUa for a Paris bonnet, with a sigh perhaps at 
the despotism of fashion ; but, if her Turkish sister lays 
aside her yashmak, she infringes solemn ordinances of 
her rehgion, and degrades herself in the sight of all. 
If, however, as we have seen, the Koran awards a very 
modest place in the scheme of society to women, it does 
not, as many have supposed, absolve her from responsi- 
bilities here, or exclude her from participation in the 
life to come. This would be manifest, even though no 
other duty had been enjoined than performing the pil- 
grimage to Mecca, which is of such paramount impor- 
tance that it is declared that a man might as well die a 
Jew or a Christian as neglect it. It has been errone- 
ously supposed that the Koran allows women no souls. 
But it expressly states that the devout Mussulman, in 
addition to his seventy-two celestial brides, shaU be 
allowed the company of any of his wives in paradise, 
of whom he may not have grown tired on earth. The 
Prophet too, finding that his interrogator, on one occa- 
sion, was not satisfied with the declaration that there 
would be no old women in heaven, hastened to add 
that he only meant by this that all would be restored 
to youth ; though, to be sure, when he was permitted 
to take a bird's-eye view of heaven and hell, he saw 
that most of the inhabitants of the latter place were 
women. The absence of women from mosques has 
probably led hasty observers to the above conclusion ; 



502 WOMEN OF THE CENTUKY. 

but this is only due to the desire that they should not 
distract the attention of the male worshippers." 

Even, then, in the lauds of the Crescent the woman 
disciples of the cross can be abundantly useful. The 
same is undeniably true in regard to all other lands 
where the light of the truth is dawning, or yet to 
dawn. 

It would be simply impossible to give even a para- 
graph to each of the women missionaries who have 
gone forth to foreign lands for Jesus' sake. A few 
only can be mentioned here. American missions 
began in the present century ; and every woman mis- 
sionary who has gone from our shores has been a 
woman of our national century. The three women 
who successively became the companions of Adoniram 
Judson are known and honored in all the churches. 
Their memoirs have been written, and are easy of 
access, and as thrilling as any work of fiction to the 
Christian heart. Says Mrs. Hale, "Mrs. Ann H. 
Judson was the first American woman who resolved 
to leave her friends and countiy to bear the gospel to 
the heathen in foreign cHmes. Well does she merit 
the reverence and love of all Christians ; nor can the 
nineteenth century furnish the record of a woman 
who so truly deserves the title, a missionary heroine.'' 
The brief sketch of the pioneer woman missionary, as 
given by Mrs. Hale, is as follows : " Ann Hasseltine 
Judson was born in 1789, in Bradford, Mass. She was 
carefully educated, and became early distinguished for 
her deep and earnest religious character. In February, 
1812, she married Adoniram Judson ; and in the same 
month sailed for Calcutta, her husband being appointed 
missionary to India. Soon after they reached Calcutta^ 



WOMEN MISSIONARIES. 503 

they were ordered by the East India Company, who 
were opposed to all missionary labors among the 
natives, to quit the country. While waiting for an 
opportunity of leaving, Mr. and Mrs. Judson employed 
their time in investigating the subject of baptism ; and, 
being convinced that their previous opinions had been 
erroneous, they joined the Baptist church at Calcutta. 
Ill July, 1813, Mr. and Mrs. Judson arrived at 
Rangoon in Burmah, where for many years they 
labored successfully and diligently in the cause of 
religion. In 1821, in consequence of protracted ill 
health, Mrs. Judson returned alone to America, where 
she remained till 1823, when she rejoined her husband 
in Rangoon. DiflBculties arising between the govern- 
ment of Bengal and the Burman empire, and the 
taking of Rangoon by the British in 1824, caused the 
imprisonment of Mr. Judson and several other for- 
eigners who were at Ava, the capital of the Burmau 
empire. For two years the inexpressible sufferings 
endured by these prisoners were alleviated by the con- 
stant care and exertions of Mrs. Judson ; and it was 
owing in a great measure to her efforts that they were 
at last released. In 1826 the missionary establishment 
was removed from Rangoon to Amherst ; and in 
October of that year Mrs. Judson died of a fever dur- 
ing her husband's absence. The physician attributed 
the fatal termination of the disease to the injury her 
constitution had received from her long-protracted suf- 
ferings and severe privations at Ava. In about six 
months after her death her only child, an infant daugh- 
ter, was laid by her side." Dr. Judson married, for his 
second wife, the widow of the missionary Board- 
man. 

Sarah B. Judson was born in Alstead, N.H., Nov 



504 WOMEN OF THE CBNTDHT. 

4, 1803 ; was " married to George D. Boardman in 
1825, and soon after accompanied her husband and 
other missionaries to Calcutta. The first destination 
of Mr. and Mrs. Boardman was Tavoy ; and there, 
after encountering great dangers and sufferings, and 
overcoming appalling diflBculties and discouragements, 
in all of which Mrs. Boardman shared, Mr. Boardman 
died in 1831. She had previously lost two children ; 
one only, a son, was left her, and they were alone in 
a strange land. But she did not desert her missionary 
duties. Four years she remained a widow, and then 
was united in marriage with Rev. Dr. Judson. Their 
union was a happy one ; but after the birth of her 
fourth child her health failed, and a voyage to America 
was recommended as the only hope of restoration. Dr. 
Judson, with his wife and children, took passage for 
their own country ; but, on reaching the Isle of France, 
Mrs. Judson's health was so greatly improved, that Dr. 
Judson, whose duties in Burmah were urgent, deter- 
mined to return, while his wife and children should 
visit America. The arrangements were accordingly 
made ; and, in expectation of the parting," Mrs. Jud 
son wrote a sweet poem commencing, — 

" We part oa this green islet, love, — 
Thou for the eastern main ; 
I for the setting sun, love, 
Oh I when to meet again? " 

^^nd closing with this stanza : — 

" Then gird thine armor on, love, 
Nor faint then by the way, 
Till Boodh shall fall, and Burmah's sons 
Shall own Messiah's sway." 



WOMEN MISSIONARIES. 505 

One verse in the poem has been often quoted, for ita 
sweetness and truth : — 

" Yet my spirit clings to thine, love, 
Thy soul remains with me; 
And oft we'll hold communion sweet 
O'er the dark and distant sea." 

But they did not part then ; for on putting out to sea 
Mrs. Judson grew worse, and died in sight of the rocky 
island of St. Helena ; and there her form is resting. 
The island has become noted as the place where Napo- 
leon died, but it is dearer to Christian hearts the world 
over as the place where Sarah B. Judson's body rests. 
The warrior is eclipsed by the woman missionary. 

Emily C. Judson, the third wife of Adoniram Jud- 
son, has been mentioned among literary women. She 
was a faithful laborer in the Master's cause, and won a 
pure renown, both as a writer and a missionary. 

Harriet Newell, " the first American heroine of 
the missionary enterprise, was born at Haverhill, Mass., 
Oct. 10, 1793. Her maiden name was Atwood. In 
1806, while at school at Bradford, she became deeply 
impressed with the importance of religion ; and at the 
age of sixteen she joined the church. On the 9th of 
February, 1812, she married the Rev. Samuel Newell, 
missionary to the Burman empire ; and in the same 
month Mr. and Mrs. Newell embarked with their 
friends Mr. and Mrs. Judson for India. On the arri- 
val of the missionaries at Calcutta, they were ordered 
to leave by the East India Company; and accordingly 
Mr. and Mrs. Newell embarked for the Isle of France. 
Three weeks before reaching the island she became the 
mother of a child which died in five days. On the 
SOth of November, at the age of twenty, she expired, 



506 WOMEN OF THE CENT UK r. 

far from home and friends. . . . Iler most earnest 
wish was to do good for the cause of Christ, and be of 
service in teaching his gospel to the heathen. . . . 
* Her work was short, her toil soon ended ; but she fell, 
cheering by her dying words and her high example the 
missionaries of all coming time. She was the first, but 
not the only martyr. Heathen lands are dotted over 
with the graves of fallen Christians ; missionary wom- 
en sleep on almost every shore ; and the bones of 
some are whitening in the fathomless depths of the 
ocean. Never will the influence of this devoted wo- 
man be estimated properly, until the light of an eternal 
day shall shine on all the actions of men. We are to 
measure her glory, not by what she suffered, for others 
have suffered more than she did. But we must remem- 
ber that she went out when the missionary enterjirise 
was in its infancy, when even the best of men looked 
upon it with suspicion. The tide of opposition she 
dared to stem ; and with no example, no predecessor 
from American shores, she went out to rend the veil of 
darkness which gathered over all the nations of the 
East. Things have changed since then. Our mission- 
aries go forth with the approval of all the good ; and 
the odium which once attended such a hfe is swept 
away. It is to some extent a popular thing to be a mis- 
sionary, although the work is still one of hardship and 
suffering. It is this fact which gathers such a splendor 
around the name of- Harriet Newell, and invests her 
short, eventful life with such a charm. She went 
when no foot had trodden out the path, and was the 
first American missionary ever called to an eternal re- 
ward.' " ^ 

Harriet Newell left a journal and a few letters, the 

^ Haroines of the Missionary Enterprise, quoted by Mrs. Hale. 



WOMEN MISSIONARIES. 507 

record of her religious feelings, and the events of her 
short missionary life. Those fragments have been 
published, making a little book. " Such is her con- 
tribution to literature. Yet this small work has been, 
and is now, of more importance to the intellectual 
progress of the world than all the works of Mme. de 
Stael. The writings of Harriet Newell, translated into 
several tongues, and published in many editions, have 
reached the heart of society, and assisted to build up 
the throne of woman's power, even the moral influence 
of her sex over men. Their intellect can never reach 
its highest elevation but through the medium of moral 
cultivation." ^ 

Elizabeth Bakes D wight was born in Andover, 
Mass., in 1808 ; in 1820 married Rev. H. G. O. Dwight, 
and sailed with him to Malta, where she resided two 
years, her husband being a missionary to that place. 
She was actively and very usefully engaged while there, 
and when her husband removed to Constantinople. . . . 
The missionary family resided at San Stefano, near the 
Bosphorus. Scenes of beauty and of storied interest 
were around Mrs. Dwight ; still she had few opportuni- 
ties of visiting the remarkable places in this region of 
the world. Once she made an excursion with Lady 
Franklin and an American friend to the Black Sea, and 
found her health renovated ; still she was drooping and 
delicate, like a transplanted flower which pines for its 
own mountain home, and the fresh breezes and pure 
sunshine of its first blossoming. In the spring of 
1837 the plague appeared at Constantinople ; and Mrs. 
Dwight felt she was one of its doomed victims. The 
presentiment proved true. She died on July 8, 1837 ; 
her devoted husband being the only person who re- 

1 Mrs. Hale's Woman's Reoonl 



508 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

mained to watch over, comfort her, and receive hei 
last breath. She was only twenty-nine years of age, 
and had hardly become habituated to the missionary 
cross, when she was called to wear its crown." 

Sabah Lanman Smith, bom in Norwich, Conn., 
Tune 18, 1802. Her biography has been written by 
Rev. E. W. Hooker, and is commended to the reader. 
She commenced teaching in Sunday school when only 
fourteen. In 1833 she married Rev. Eli Smith of the 
American mission at Beyroot, Syria ; and " she went 
to that remote region as the ' helpmeet ' for a humble 
missionary. She was singularly fitted for this impor- 
tant station, having been a voluntary missionary to the 
miserable remnant of a tribe of Mohegan Indians. She 
had thus tested her powers, and strengthened her love 
for this arduous work, in the cause of doing good. Her 
letters to her father and friends, while reflecting on this 
important step of a foreign mission, will be intensely 
interesting to those who regard this consecration of 
woman to her oflQce of moral teacher as among the 
most efl&cient causes of the success of the gospel. The 
literary merits of her writings are of a high order. We 
venture to say, ttiat, compared with the ' journals ' and 
' letters ' of the most eminent men in the missionary 
station, those of Mrs. Smith will not be found inferior 
in merits of any kind. . . . Such are the helpers Chris- 
tian men may summon to their aid, whenever they will 
provide for the education of woman, and give her the 
office of teacher, for which God designed her. Mrs 
Smith accompanied her husband to Beyroot, and was 
indeed his ' help,' and good angel. She studied Arabic, 
established a school for girls, exerted her moral and 
Christian influence with gieat effect on the mixed 
population of Moslems, Syrians, Jews, visiting and in- 



WOMEN MISSIONARIES. 509 

struoting the mothers as well as the children, working 
with all her heart and soul, mind and might ; and the 
time of her service soon expired. She died Sept. 30, 
1836, aged thirty-four, a little over three years from 
the time she left her own dear land. She died at 
Boojah, near Smyrna ; and in the burial-ground of the" 
latter her precious dust reposes beneath a monument 
which does honor to America by showing the heroic" 
and holy character of her missionary daughters." ^ 

Frances M. Hill is, as Mrs. Hale says, " deservedly 
honored for her long and beneficial exertions in the" 
cause of female education in Greece." She was born 
in New York City, and married Rev. John H. Hill. 
In 1831 an attempt was made by the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church in America to assist the most ancient 
Eastern Church of Christ, that of the Greek. In pur- 
suance of this plan, the Rev. John H. Hill and hie" 
wife were sent to Athens, to found and superintencJ 
such seminaries of learning and Christian morals as 
they might find practicable and useful. Athens, on* 
their arrival, presented to them when entering within' 
its crumbling walls, a scene of desolation such as inevit- 
ably follows in the bloody train of war. The city was 
one mass of ruins, over and among which these mis- 
sionary teachers had then to pick their almost pathless 
way. In the course of a few weeks, they began to 
gather around them the destitute, half-clad, ignorant 
daughters of Greece ; although many of these were 
among the well-born, who had been reduced to poverty 
by the war which had for a time levelled all classes. 
Upon Mr. and Mrs. Hill was devolved the momentous 
task of moulding the new social features of the Greek 
people, just escaped from Turkish bondage, and soop 

1 Mrs Ha]ft 



510 WOMEN OF IBM OKNTUBT. 

to take their position among the civilized nations of 
Europe." This great missionary work, which has now 
been continued many long years, " is acknowledged to 
be the means of incalculable and unqualified good to 
the land of Pericles and Aspasia." 

Sarah Davis Comstock of Brookline, Mass., sailed 
in June, 1834, to Burmah, with her husband, as a 
missionary. " In his labors between Anacan and Bur- 
mah Mr. Comstock found his wife of great assistance. 
Whenever women came near the house, she would 
instantly leave her occupation, if possible, to tell them 
of the Saviour. She collected a school, translated the 
Scripture catechism, and administered both medicine 
and advice to the sick, besides teaching her own chil- 
dren, and attending to household duties. In the even- 
ing, whenever she could be out, she might often be 
found with several native women collected around her, 
to whom she was imparting religious knowledge. 
Mrs. Comstock's faith was strong that ere long Arra- 
can would, as a country, acknowledge God as its ruler ; 
and in this expectation she labored until death came 
to lead her away to her infinite reward. She died of 
a disease peculiar to the climate, on the 28th April, 
1843, leaving four children, two of whom had previously 
been sent to America for instruction ; the other two 
soon followed her to the grave. Nothing could exceed 
the sorrow expressed by the natives for her loss. More 
chan two thousand came on the day after her death to 
share their grief with her afflicted husband, who sur- 
vived her loss but a few months. 

Annie P. James, born in Salem, Mass., Dec. 22, 
1825, was the daughter of Joshua Safford of that city, 
vt^as married to Dr. Sexton James of Philadelphia, and 
they sailed ^or China as missionaries. When neai 



WOMEN MISSION ABIES. 511 

Hong-Kong, on April 15, 1848, the vessel in which 
they were was upset, and the sacrifice upon the altar 
of missions was accepted. Both were drowned before 
their noble work had commenced. 

'* The flower, though offered in the bud, 
Is no vain sacrifice." 

Eleanor Macomber, born in 1801, at Lake Pleas- 
ant, Hamilton County, N.Y., was sent out by the 
Baptists in 1830, to labor among the Ojibwas in 
Michigan. In 1836 she went to Maulmain, Burmah, 
as a missionary. " Here she lived and labored almost 
alone, doing the great work which was assigned her. 
In the midst of discouragements she fainted not, but 
performed labors and endured afflictions almost incred- 
ible. When she arrived at the scene of her future 
labors, she found vice and sin reigning triumphant. 
On every hand intemperance and sensuality were ob- 
servable. She immediately commenced in their midst 
the worship of God. On the sabbath the people were 
drawn together to hear the story of the cross; and 
during the week her house was thrown open for morn- 
ing and evening prayers. By her perseverance she 
soon collected a small school ; and in less than a year a 
church of natives, numbering more than twenty persons, 
was formed, and placed under the care of the Rev. Mr. 
Stephens. Intemperance, sensuality, and other vices 
gradually disappeared, and the Christian virtues took 
their place. The idea of a weak, friendless, and lone 
woman trusting herself among a drunken and sensual 
people, and there with no husband, father, or brother, 
establishing public worship, opening her house for 
prayer and praise, and gathering schools in the midst 
of wild and unlettered natives, i« one full of moral 



512 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

grandeur. Intelligent, active, and laborious. Miss Ma- 
comber was not content with teaching all who came to 
her : she went out to the surrounding tribes, attended 
only by one or two converts ; and fording rivers, cross- 
ing ravines, climbing high hills and mountains, she 
everywhere carried the doctrines of salvation. Even 
the heathen heart was touched by this spectacle ; and 
this estimable woman was respected and loved by 
those who hated the gospel she taught. Miss Macom- 
ber died April 16, 1840, of the jungle fever, at Maul- 
main, where she had been carried for the purpose of 
obtaining medical aid. Her death was deeply lamented 
by the natives ; and those who did not love the 
Saviour mourned the loss of his servant, whose kind- 
ness and hospitality they had experienced, and followed 
her to the grave with wails of sorrow." ^ 

Henrietta Shuck was born in Kilmarnock, Va., 
Oct. 28, 1817. She was the daughter of a Baptist 
clergyman, Rev. Addison Hall. She was baptized 
when about twelve years of age, " but her extreme 
youth did not prevent her from keeping faithfully the 
vows she so early took upon herself. On Sept. 8, 1835, 
she was married to Rev. J. Lewis Shuck, and went as 
a missionary to China. Eight years she labored there 
successfully, having learned the Chinese language. 
She died Nov. 27, 1847, soon after the birth of her 
fifth child. During the last year of her life, a new 
schoolhouse had been erected, and a school gathered 
under her care, of twenty Chinese boys and six girls, 
besides her own four children. An interesting memoir 
has been published. She was the first American woman 
missionary to China. Maey Elizabeth Van Lennep, 
bom in Hartford, Conn., April 16, 1821, was the daugh- 

' Mra. Hale's Woman's Record. 



WOMEN MISSION ABIES. olS 

ter of Rev. Dr. Hawes of that city. She became » 
Christian when very young ; and in 1843 she married 
Rev. Henry J. Van Lennep, a missionary to Turkey, 
whither she accompanied him, and labored in the mis- 
sion school, but died Sept. 27, 1844 ; and her body was 
placed in the Protestant graveyard near Constantinople. 
" She hath done what she could." 

In Mrs. Hale's " Woman's Record " is a long list, 
comprising some hundreds of names, of women who 
have been or are missionaries in foreign lands, sent by 
the American Board of the Congregational Church, by 
the Baptists, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, and 
others. Nobler women than those connected with these 
foreign missions were never known. Their " praise is 
in all the churches;" and their heroic sacrifices and 
successful labors prove them to have had as divine a 
call to their Christian work as ever their husbands had 
to the ministering of the word. Fidelia Fiske toihng 
so faithfully among the Nestorians, Mrs. Benton so long 
and well at Mount Lebanon mission, are but types of 
hundreds of other women worthy of reverence and 
fame. Of many women missionaries, biographical 
sketches have been printed in various periodicals, and 
in volumes numerous enough for a small library, and 
valuable beyond computation to the Christian cause. 
The value of this chapter would be greatly enhanced 
by a complete list of these good books ; but the writer 
must content herself with earnestly advising other 
women to read all the records of women missionaries 
within their reach. Creeds may differ, but the spirii 
of self-sacrifice and earnest toil for humanity is every- 
where commendable. Such memoirs as those of Mrs. 
Sarah Emily York, Mrs. Helen M. Mason, Luoy 



514: WOMEN OF THE CENTUBT- 

T. Lord, and others, will bless their readers. In the 
memoir of Rev. David T. Stoddard is the record of his 
noble wife, Habriet B. Stoddard, who was a sister 
of Mrs. Caroline A. Mason, previously mentioned. 
Mrs. Stoddard died at Trebizond, in August, 1848. 
She was the daughter of Dr. Calvin Briggs of Marble- 
head, Mass., and a teacher at one time in Bradford 
Academy, so hallowed by the memory of Harriet Newell 
and Ann H. Judsou, who were students there. Many 
other noble women are mentioned in the memoirs of 
their missionary husbands in such wise as to show that 
they are worthy women of the century, who are sowing 
the seed of the kingdom in the spirit of their Master. 

Among the missionary efforts of women should be 
mentioned that of the Woman's Centenary Association 
of the Universalists in America. During the centen- 
nial year of the existence of their denomination, that 
body of women raised 135,974.73 ; and since that date 
this sum has been increased so that more than one 
hundred thousand dollars has been raised, some of which 
has been expended in establishing a mission in Scotland. 
The president, Mrs. C. A. Soule, has herself performed 
missionary service in the land of Knox, as well as much 
similar work for Christ in our own land. Rev. Phebe 
A. Hanaford is one of the State Missionary Committee 
in New Jersey, and has done a little home missionary 
work. The same is true of other women ministers who 
are missionaries ex officio^ their commission from on high 
leaving them at liberty to sow the good seed beside all 
waters. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's mission to England, 
in behalf of the cause of peace, may properly be men- 
tioned under this head ; for the animus of all true mis- 
sionary work, home or foreign, is in harmony with the 



WOMEN y. 



angel anthem, " Peace on eai 
courage war is an eJBFort to sj. 
Prince of Peace. 



Salvation, oh salvation! ,' "^^ 

The joyful sound proclaim, 
Till earth's remotest nation 

Has learned Messiah's name." 




[ -t 



CHAPTER XV. 



WOMEN EDUCATORS. 



Catherine E. Beecher— Mary Lyon — Elizabeth P. Peabody — Martha 
Whiting — Wages of Women as Teachers — Women on School 
Committees, and as Trustees and Professors of Educational In- 
stitutions. 



" But turning from the sacred page, alike in the profane, 
We need not look for evidence of woman's wortb in vain.' 



Maky M. Chase. 



" Teachers of good things." — Tit. ii. 3. 

EDUCATION is a magical word in some regions. 
It means more than most persons imagine. Its 
derivation implies the idea of a leader ; and such wise 
and faithful leaders to draw forth the ideas, and help 
the intellectual growth of the pupil, our country has 
happily known, among her women as among her men. 

President Eliot of Harvard College has presented 
the idea that high education is hereditary. If so, it 
is true in regard to mothers and daughters as well as 
to fathers and sons. He says that the triennial cata- 
logues of the older American colleges prove beyond a 



WOMEN EDUCATORS. 517 

doubt, that it is chiefly the people who themselves 
have trained minds who desire thorough training ioj 
their children, and are able to procure it for them. 
Culture is much surer to descend to children than 
wealth, because the natural forces of hereditary trans- 
mission are on its side. And the college catalogues 
would show this to be true in regard to women stu- 
dents, if only those colleges had for long years been 
open to the daughters as well as to the sons of tliose 
who have so liberally supported and endowed them. 

"The Boston Journal," reporting Ex-Gov. Bullock s 
address at the Mount Holyoke Seminary says, — 

•' But the chief motive cause in the elevation of the 
sex during the last part of the century has been the 
quickening power of education. The Reformation be- 
gan this agency, cliivalry did something towards it, 
and the Church to a certain degree lent its aid ; but it 
was only under a combination of modern influences 
that the work rapidly ripened. The present American 
system of female education is the result of a long 
conflict with unenlightened public sentiment, a triumph 
over prejudices which have had no analogy in the other 
ways of our life. The first dawn of this moral revo- 
lution was in Massachusetts ; and the civilized world 
concedes the fact by adopting the example. When free 
education for both sexes, as a municipal duty to be 
enforced by law, became here the public interpretation 
of State obligation, the finger of transfiguration touched 
the destiny of woman ; nor can any reaction ever set it 
back. Gov. Bullock cited some interesting facts from 
his own experience in the gubernatorial office, as to the 
bestowment of State aid to the cause of female educa- 
tioa. 



518 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

" The work has been reciprocal. If the State has 
done something for the education of woman, she has 
already more than repaid the favor by what she 
has done towards educating the State. Women now 
constitute nine-tenths of the whole corps of public 
instructors in the State ; they fill the same oflQce in 
the normal schools, in all the high schools, in all the 
higher seminaries ; in short, they are supreme every- 
where in our education, save in the technical and 
classical schools and the colleges. No change so 
broad and radical as this has been witnessed in any 
other field of social science in modern time. ' For the 
future,' says Gov. Bullock, ' our citizenship, our magis- 
tracy, our history, is under their hands.' And he 
thinks that, in view of the corrupt tendencies of our 
politics, which can only be thoroughly eradicated in 
the coming generation, this work could not be in better 
hands. 

" A cheering result of this progress is, that woman 
is esteemed and reverenced more highly than ever, be- 
cause she is reverenced, not for any idealized or ima- 
gined qualities, but exactly for what she is, — for her- 
self." 

The press everywhere is acknowledging the value 
of education for woman. The " Gospel Banner " of 
Maine has the following sympathetic reference to the 
great facts of the age, concerning woman. The editor 
Dr. Quinby, says : — 

" Within the last twenty years great advancement 
has been made in the thorough education of women ; 
and, though there are many pei-sons in society who 
frown upon the prominence this question is assuming, 



WOMEN EDUCATORS. 519 

no person of intelligence would consent that society 
should fall back to the views and customs of former 
times. Under the prevaiUng facts and opinions, the 
following, which we cut from a New York exchange, 
is every word true : — 

" There is special need at present for highly educated 
women to be the professional teachers of their sex. 
Accomplished women, cultivated in the schools by 
wide reading and earnest thought and by travel, are 
wanted now in the colleges established for their sex. 
These institutions are needed in addition to the 
ordinary colleges ; for woman requires not simply as 
broad a curriculum of study as the other sex, but a 
richer one. We do not believe in submitting every 
woman to the same bare round of studies. The 
sesthetic side of her nature must be fully developed 
and trained. So, in addition to the fullest opportuni- 
ties, she must have special privileges.' " 

America's first century has not been without able 
and distinguished women educators worthy of their 
fame. A few of the chief among these may be men- 
tioned. 

Maby Lyon. — This famous teacher has been ably 
portrayed for these pages by Julia May Dakbow, 
herself worthy of a high place among the educators 
of the century. 

" In these days of advanced civilization, women of 
extensive literary attainments, and sound culture of 
mind and grace, are many ; but rarely is there a charac- 
ter who 80 perfectly unites unusual mental acquire- 
ments with a sense of duty so strong, and love of 
right 80 controlling, as the subject of this sketch 



520 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Maey Lyon was born in Buckland, Franklin County, 
Mass., Feb. 28, 1797. From parents of exemplary 
piety she inherited a love for religious instruction and 
active Christian work. While quite young she was 
remarkable for maturity of character : yet her sense 
of the ludicrous, and power of humorous description, 
rendered her always an agreeable companion. At the 
death of her father the family were left dependent 
upon their own exertions. 

" Mary's opportunities for early education were lim- 
ited; but an unusual aptitude for learning was soon 
noticed by her teachers. She committed with facility, 
and recited with verbal accuracy. Not depending, how- 
ever, on genius, as minds less gifted are prone to do, 
she mastered her lessons by hard study, and appUed 
herself to them with great assiduity and perseverance. 
After the second marriage of her mother, Mary and 
her only brother remained at the homestead, she taking 
charge of the house, although at this time hardly more 
than fifteen years of age. A year afterwards hei 
brother married. Mary continued to reside with him, 
however, until 1819, when he removed to Chautauqua,, 
N.Y. 

" Previous to this time she had occasionally attended 
school, and had also commenced her career as teacher 
at Shelburue Falls. In the fall of 1817 she entered the 
academy at Ashfield. Here she received encourage- 
ment and assistance from friends who recognized in her 
a gem of uncommon brilliancy, which only needed 
polish to shine with unusual lustre. 

" Her slender funds were soon expended. She was 
about to return to the employment of teaching, when 
the trustees of the academy offered her the free use of 
ell its advantages. This offer she gladly accepted, and 



WOMEN EDUCATORS. 52 1 

prosecuted her studies with so much eagerness that she 
hardly allowed lierself needful rest. Her services as a 
teacher were soon much sought. These invitations she 
at dUBFerent times accepted. The money obtained in 
this way was devoted to procuring instruction on sub- 
jects in which she was especially deficient. In 1821 
she attended Rev. Joseph Emerson's school in Byfield. 
At this time her mind was active and powerful, but 
undisciplined. Previous to enjoying the instruction of 
Mr. Emerson, the intellect rather than the heart had 
engaged Miss Lyon's attention : from him she learned 
that each should receive its due proportion of cultiva- 
tion. 

" In 1822 she was invited to assist Miss Z. P. Grant 
in the Adams Academy at Derry, N.H. As the school 
year did not include the winter, Miss Lyon returned 
late in the fall to Buckland, and there opened a small 
school. She had at this time gained such a reputation 
that many of the teachers in the common schools 
embraced the opportunity to profit by her instruction. 
About 1830 she began to consider the plan of founding 
a permanent female seminary ; and from this time the 
ways and means to the accomplishment of this object 
occupied the chief place in her heart. This institution, 
as stated by Miss Lyon, was ' designed exclusively for 
older young ladies preparing to teach, and soon to go 
forth, and exert an influence in a variety of ways on 
the cause of education and religion.' It was first pro- 
posed to locate the school at Amherst, where suitable 
buildings had just been vacated, and could be obtained 
at a reasonable price ; but those to whom the matter 
was intrusted could see no way of raising the sum 
necessary for the purchase. In the face of adverse cir- 
cumstances. Miss Lyon still continued to plan and 
arrange. 



522 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

" In the fall of 1834 she gave up her connectioD 
with Miss Grant at Ipswich, and set herself apart to 
the fulfilment of her great purpose. 

" At this time she was thirty-seven, in good health, 
and with faith, courage, and enthusiasm unbounded. 
Not a man of wealth had as yet given her countenance 
and aid. Even the religious press had on several 
occasions refused to publish articles setting forth the 
plan and principles of the proposed institution. But 
she was not wholly alone. A few who had known her 
long and well, relying on her understanding, energy, 
and benevolence, gave her their influence. Sept. 6, 
1834, a few gentlemen met at Ipswich to consider the 
plan of founding a seminary upon a basis embracing 
her favorite views. After much consideration, the 
committee decided to depend for funds upon the free- 
will offerings of an enlightened Christian public. The 
question of location was settled that winter. Several 
towns had offered generous subscriptions if the seminary 
should be located within their limits. The final de- 
cision was in favor of South Hadley. The act of 
incorporation passed the Legislature Feb. 10, 1836. 

" The corner-stone was laid Oct. 3 of the same year. 
The cost of the first edifice was estimated at fifteen 
thousand dollars ; and it was to furnish home accom- 
modations for about eighty students with their teachers. 
Miss Lyon undertook the business of obtaining the 
funds for furnishing the building. Nov. 8, 1837, was 
advertised as the day for the opening of the school ; 
and, soon after that date, more than the prescribed 
number came together. 

" The domestic arrangements were pecuhar in two 
respects. All the pupils were obliged to board in the 
seminary, even though their homes might be in the 



WOMEN EDUCATORS. 523 

Immediate vicinity. Again, the work of the family 
was performed by the young ladies. This lessened 
their expenses, and also gave the institution a greater 
degree of independence. The first year was not with- 
out its trials ; but the success of the new idea was fully 
established and demonstrated when, the next August, 
the anniversary exercises occurred, and the first gradu- 
ates received their diplomas. The school gained in 
numbers and advantages ; and, while a high standard 
of scholarship was especially sought, yet a true religious 
culture was acknowledged to be the only firm founda- 
tion for womanly character. 

" For twelve years Mary Lyon lived to enjoy the 
fruits of her enterprise, and see, each year, her pupils 
leave the seminary prepared for active, influential lives. 
March 6, 1849, she died of congestion of the brain ; and 
her remains rest within the shadow of the building that 
stands a monument to her life of ceaseless activity and 
consecration to the advancement of Christ's kingdom. 
The words graven on the stone which marks her rest- 
ing-place reveal the ambition that led her by a way so 
perplexing to a success so complete : ' There is nothing 
in the universe that I fear, but that I shall not know 
all my duty, or shall fail to do it.' The fundamental 
ideas of the founder have since her death been cherished 
principles of the school. Its advantages have kept 
pace with the progress of the times. Many, obeying 
a divine impulse, have devoted their hves to spreading 
the gospel in pagan lands. Branch institutions have 
sprung from the parent vine at Kalamazoo, Mich., 
Oxford and Painesville, 0., South Africa, Persia, and 
Turkey. 

" New colleges and institutions yearly add to woman's 
opportunities for advanced education ; and, in kindly 



524 WOMEN OF THE CENTUET. 

feeling with them all, Mount Holyoke Seminary will 
maintain its past reputation, and, with constantly in- 
creasing facilities for scientific and classical study, aim 
at endowing each graduate with the broad culture, and 
elevated principles essential to perfect womanhood." 

Catherine E. Beeoheb, daughter of Rev. Lyman 
Beecher, D.D., was born Sept. 6, 1800, at East Hamp- 
ton, L.I., where she resided till about ten years of age. 
Mrs. Hale gives nearly five pages to a sketch of her 
life and some extracts from her writings. She opened 
her somewhat celebrated school in Hartford, Conn., in 
1822 ; and, for the sake of her own pupils, she pre- 
pared her first printed work on Arithmetic. Her second 
work was on the more diiBficult points of Theology ; and 
her third, an octavo, on Mental and Moral Philoso- 
phy. This has been printed, and introduced into one 
of our colleges for young men, as a text-book, but has 
not been published. In 1832 she accompanied her 
father to Ohio, and in Cincinnati for two years super- 
intended a school for young women. " Since then 
Miss Beecher has been engaged in maturing and carry- 
ing into effect a great plan for the education of all the 
children in our country. For this end she has written 
and journeyed, pleaded and labored." A reference to 
Mrs. Hale's book will show her plan. Miss Beecher 
is known as a writer of books designed to benefit her 
sex. " Domestic Economy, for the use of Young 
Ladies at Home and Abroad," is one of these. 

Emma Willard is among the educators who should 
be mentioned here. Her memoir has been written by 
Dr. Lord. She was born in Berlin, Conn., February, 
1787. Her maiden name was Hart. Mrs. Hale says, 
*' The love of teaching appears to have been a ruling 



WOMEN EDTJCATOSS. 525 

passion in her mind. At the age of sixteen, she took 
charge of a district school in her native town. The 
following year she opened a select school, and in the 
summer of the next year was placed at the head of the 
Berlin Academy. During this period, being engaged 
at home throughout the summer and winter in the 
capacity of instructress, she managed in the spring and 
autumn to attend one or other of the two boarding- 
schools at Hartford." In 1807 she took charge of the 
academy in Westfield, Mass., but upon pressing invita- 
tion went to Middlebury, Vt., where she taught a girl's 
academy for two years. In 1809 she married. In 1814 
she opened a boarding-school at Middlebury, introducing 
new studies, and inventing new methods of teaching. 
She was invited by Gov. Clinton to remove her school 
to New York ; and the governor recommended her 
" Plan " for schools to the legislature in his message. 
" The result was the passage of an act to incorporate 
the proposed institute at Waterford, and another to 
give to female academies a share of the literary fund ; 
being, it is believed, the first law ever passed by any 
legislature with the direct object of improving female 
education." This fact which Mrs. Hale mentions is 
of interest, despite her objectionable use of the word 
" female." The first young lady who was examined in 
geometry publicly in Mrs. Willard's Waterford acad- 
emy, and perhaps the first in the country, was Miss 
Cramer, afterward Mrs. Curtis. In 1821 Mrs. Willard 
removed her school to Troy, and was abundantly suc- 
cessful. This seminary is now always associated with 
her name and fame. 

In 1830 Mrs. Willard visited Europe, and on her 
return published a volume of travels, the avails of 
which, amounting to twelve hundred dollars, were 



626 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

devoted to the cause of educating girls in Greece. 
She gave the avails of several other publications tc 
the same object. " In 1838 Mrs. Willard resigned hei 
charge of the Troy Seminary, and returned to Hart- 
ford, where she revised her celebrated Manual of 
American History for the use of schools. The merits 
of this work, her smaller United States History, and 
Universal History, have been attested by their very 
general use in seminaries of education. Since 1843 
she completed the revision of her historical works, 
revised her Ancient Geography, and, in compliance 
with invitations, wrote numerous addresses for different 
occasions, being mostly on educational subjects. Two 
of these were written by request of the Western Lit- 
erary Institute and College of Teachers, and were read 
at annual meetings of the society at Cincinnati, one in 
1842, and the other in 1843. In 1845, by special invi- 
tation, she attended the convention of county and 
town superintendents, held at Syracuse. She was 
invited to take part in the public debate : declining 
that honor, the gentlemen of the convention, to the 
number of about sixty, called on her at her lodgings, 
where she read to them a prepared address. The 
principal topic of it was, ' that women, now suflS- 
ciently educated, should be employed and furnished by 
the men as committees, charged with the minute cares 
and supervision of the common schools ; ' reasoning 
from the premises that to man it belongs to provide 
for the children, while upon woman it is incumbent to 
take the provision, and apply it economically and judi- 
ciously. These sentiments were received with decided 
approbation. 

"In the fall of the same year, 1845, Mrs. Willard 
made, with great satisfaction, an educational tour 



WOMEN EDUCATORS. 527 

chrough some of the southern coyunties of New York ; 
having been specially invited to attend the institutions 
for the improvement of teachers of the common schools. 
At Monticello, Binghamton, Owego, Cairo, and Rome, 
she aided in instructing no less than five hundred 
teachers of these schools ; and in many cases her part- 
ings with the young female teachers were not without 
tears. 

" The inhabitants of the places where she went to 
instruct teachers, desiring to have a share in her visits, 
at their request she attended public meetings of both 
sexes, where she introduced resolutions which were 
unanimously passed in the several counties, and aided 
in the debates. The object was, to forward her 
scheme of giving to the best-educated and most able 
women of the country, the charge and supervision of 
the village schools for little children, especially of 
those things appertaining to the conveniences of such 
schools. That the teachers of these schools should be 
mostly females, is now universally agreed ; but, argued 
she, while the young women can be the teachers, it 
needs the matrons to aid in the supervision. . . . Dur- 
ing the spring and summer of 1846, Mrs. Willard made 
the tour of the Southern and Western States, visiting 
every 'one of them except Texas. In every city she 
met her former pupils, who gave her a filial welcome. 
She was received by the principals of schools, and those 
employed in education, as an ' educationalist -, ' and as 
Buch was invited to visit and to address schools, where, 
in many instances, she received public testimonials of 
consideration. 

" In addition to the compends of history which she 
has written, she has invented, for the purpose of teach- 
ing and impressing chronology on the mind by the eye, 



528 WOMEN OF THE CENTTTBY. 

two charts of an entirely original character ; one called 
' The American Chronographic for American History,' 
and the other for universal history, called the ' Temple 
of Time.' In 1849 she published ' Last Leaves from 
American History ; ' containing an interesting account 
of our Mexican war, and of California. Mrs. Willard 
wrote one small volume of poetry, but is best known 
by her admirable hymn ' Rocked in the Cradle of the 
Deep.' Mrs. Willard died April 15, 1876, universally 
respected and widely beloved." 

Her sister, Almtra H. Lincoln Phelps, was her 
pupil once, and afterward became celebrated as an 
educator and author. " At the age of thirty, Mrs. 
Lincoln was left a widow, with two children, and with 
two perplexed estates, those of her husband and his 
father, to settle, which she successfully accomplished. 
At that time she began the study of the Latin and 
Greek languages and the natural sciences, and also 
applied herself to improving her talent for drawing and 
painting, in order to prepare herself for assisting her 
sister Mrs. Willard in the Troy Seminary, where she 
passed seven years engaged in alternate study and 
instruction. A fine sketch of Mrs. Phelps and her 
labors is given in Mrs. Hale's book. She, as well as 
Mrs. Willard, is mentioned in the chapter on ' Women 
Scientists.' Among her published works are courses 
of lectures on education, a ' Geology for Beginners,' and 
a translation of Mme. Necker de Saussure's ' Progressive 
Education.' " 

Catherine Fiskb was a teacher born in Worcester, 
Mass., July 30, 1784. She commenced her life profes- 
sion when but fifteen, and continued it till her death. 
May 20, 1837, a period of thirty-eight years. For a 
number of years she was instructor in the public or 



WOMEN BDUCATOBS. 529 

district schools; but in 1814 she opened her Female 
Seminary at Keene, N.H., where she presided during 
the remainder of her life, exerting a wide and salutary 
influence. 

Berenice Mat and Bathsheba Whitman labored 
over half a century, as teachers, in Massachusetts. 
May not the writer here place the names of her earliest 
teachers, Mary Russell (since the wife of Peleg 
Mitchell of Nantucket) and Sarah C. Easton, now 
deceased? To the latter lady, who was longest my 
teacher, I owe a debt of gratitude for thorough instruc- 
tion, which can never be repaid. Alice Mitchell, 
Susan (Burdick) Channing, and Maria L. Owen 
were also at various periods my teachers ; the first in 
her own Quaker private school, the two latter in the 
high school of Nantucket. In the grammar school, 
for a short time, I was taught by Avis Gardner, 
Lucy Starbuck, Elizabeth (Watson) Crane, 
Elizabeth Easton, Martha Mitchell, all of whose 
names I take pleasure in placing here, as they were 
educators of uncommon ability and fidelity. To other 
instructors I owe much ; but they cannot be mentioned 
here, because this is a record of some noticeable women 
of the century, and they were of the other — usually 
more favored — sex. 

Martha Whiting was born in Hingham, Mass., 
Feb. 27, 1795. She commenced teaching in her native 
town when about seventeen. She became the founder 
of the Charlestown Female Seminary, a Baptist school 
where many noted persons have been finely educated, 
among them Mary A. Livermorb, Abbie R. Ivnight, 
and others who have since been successful teachers. 
Miss Whiting died at Hingham, Aug. 22, 1853. Her 
remains rest in Mount Auburn. 



530 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Elizabeth Palmer Peabody has already been 
mentioned in the chapter on " Literary Women." 
Some of her educational views are expressed in A. 
Bronson Alcott's book " Records of a School." The 
records were really kept by Miss Peabody, who was a 
teacher in Mr. Alcott's school. In the preface to the 
third edition, she mentions a change in some of her 
educational plans or ideas. She is a devoted lover of 
the kindergarten system, and has done much toward 
introducing it into the infant-schools of our country. 

Nancy B. Seaver. — A correspondent of " The Bos- 
ton Journal" says of this lady, "I think it only a 
tribute due the memory of a long and faithful servant 
of Boston (Miss Nancy B. Seaver, who died the 8th 
inst., aged seventy-nine years), that public notice be 
given in the press. Many will remember her with re- 
spect as one who, for over thirty years, was a public- 
school teacher at the North End. In all this time she 
was absent but two weeks from her duties by sickness. 
Truly she was a true and faithful servant of the public, 
having spent her best days and life in their service." 

Says " The Boston Journal " also of Anna Glover, 
" Many elderly people have recently died in Stoughton, 
among them Miss Anna Glover at the advanced age of 
seventy-five. She was the author of ' Glover Memo- 
rials and Genealogies,' having spent many years in 
research, and written more than one thousand letters 
for information concerning the book. It was a great 
undertaking for a person in her feeble health. She, 
with her sister Eleanor, whom she survived but a few 
months, formerly kept a private school for young ladies. 
They were highly respected by a large circle of 
friends." 

A friend furniahes the following sketch of Caboliitb 







'■'^iii ' ^^ y w^^ 



WOMEN EDUCATORS. 533 

A. Cabpenter, lady principal of the well-known Laaell 
Seminary, Auburndale, Mass. : — 

Miss Carpenter has just claim to a place among the 
best women educators of our girls. It is not difficult to 
trace some of the influences which have made her such. 

To exceptional natural talent a wise mother gave op- 
portunity by placing her early in Mrs. Emma Willard's 
school at Troy, New York, which represented at the 
time the most advanced ideas in the higher education of 
women. 

Mrs. Willard inspired her pupils to do good work in 
school, and to take up life afterward with high purpose, 
courage, and patience. She was withal an elegant and 
accomplished lady, with fine feminine gifts of insight 
and foresight, who left some likeness to berself on many 
of her pupils. Miss Carpenter has these qualities in 
large measure : the intellectual integrity, executive abil- 
ity, and physical poise which give power. 

Until the death of her father, in 1871, Miss Carpenter 
conducted a private school at Saratoga Spa, her native 
place. Soon after she came with her lovely mother — 
whose gentle ways and silver hair add much to the home- 
air of the place — to her present position in Lasell Sem- 
inary. 

Through years of care and work, such as prove for 
most teachers " exhausting," she has kept perfect health, 
a steady, cheerful spirit, and the courage of youth. By 
study at home, and vacations well filled abroad, she has 
kept abreast with the improving methods of teaching 
and with the progress of knowledge in her own lines of 
work. In every emergency of a large girls' school she is 
a reserve of strength : in discipline firm ; in perplexity 
self-possessed ; in personal character and influence main- 
taining always the freshness of an ever-assimilating and 
deepening ]if«» 



534 WOMJSN OF THIS CKNTUBY. 

Claiming for herself no personal recognition, the mem- 
ory of pupils clings gratefully about such a teacher as 
experience of life reveals the value of her work, and she 
seems to them unselfish, devoted, and very faithful. So 
Providence illumines and exalts the abiding work, and 
gives it a manifold reward in human character. The 
influence of a noble woman, an inspiring teacher repeats 
itself in every home. So is Miss Carpenter remembered 
and beloved. 

She is now in the tenth year of work at Lasell Semi- 
nary, which owes much to her fidelity and devotion ; and 
the cause of thorough womanly education also owes her 
much, and has in her a noble representative and helper. 

Alice C. Fletcher has been many years a teacher. 
As the secretary of the Association for the Advance- 
ment of Women, she has some prominence, and has 
done valuable work. Her response to a wi^h for data 
as is follows : — 

" Although I have labored by my pen, my voice, and 
my executive powers, for the elevation of woman, and 
the purification of the race from the sins of drunken- 
ness both of spirits and tobacco, yet I do not find the 
language of data. 

" Your request came to me with the suddenness of 
the vision to Abou Ben Adhem, and like him I can 
only say from my heart, ' Write me as one who loves ' 
her fellow- women." 

" The New York Tribune" thus refers to a veteran 
teacher : — 

" The death is announced at Cleveland of Miss 
Almeda Booth, who for thirty years has been a teacher 



WOMEN EDUCATORS. 535 

In Northern Ohio, and who was for a long time the 
lady principal of Hiram College. There is something 
peculiarly honorable in such a career : it can hardly 
bring the enduring fame or even the material reward 
which most toilers seek for, but it is extremely labo- 
rious as well as responsible. If we consider how many 
pupils have been under the guidance of this lady at 
the critical period of their lives, how many characters 
she has been instrumental in forming and rounding, 
into how many homes she has sent good mothers, and 
into how many schools good teachers, how many lives 
she has made successful by guarding their early cul- 
ture, how much intellectual progress her training has 
made possible, of how many hundreds she has been — if 
we may say so — the real mother, we shall then begin to 
comprehend the nobility of her vocation. So many 
teach only for a time, — men until they can prepare 
themselves for something else, women until they can 
marry, — that instances of lifelong devotion to school- 
keeping, though by no means rare, are not so common 
as they should be. For, after all, teaching is a busi- 
ness to grow into, nor can it be well done unless it is 
loved by the doer. . . . 

" It is evident that the subject of education has very 
fast hold of the American mind ; but we are all better 
assured of its importance than of the methods by which 
it should be conducted. In the discussions to which 
the religious question has given rise, we are surprised 
that so little should be said of the teacher's position, 
and that apparently so little is left to the teacher's dis- 
cretion. . . . 

" Once for all, let it be understood that teaching is 
not like street-paving or house-building, or other mat- 
ter of contract ; that teachers are not hired just to give 



536 WOMEN OF THE CENTUKY. 

lessous in g^Dgraphy and grammar according to sys- 
tems approved by those who hire them ; that teaching, 
if it be real, is a contact of mind, with mind and heart 
with heart ; or, to use Dr. Webster's explanation, that 
it is ' sending, passing, communicating, leading, draw- 
ing.' 

" Clearly, if more teachers were what they should be, 
and the confidence of the public in them what it should 
be, half our difficulties would at once vanish. The 
clever and accomplished head of a well-established pri- 
vate school does as he pleases : he reads the Bible to 
his scholars, or he omits the reading, as he thinks fit ; 
he varies the routiae of his establishment according to 
circumstances or to the special need of individuals : he 
keeps no Procrustean bed for stretching or shortening 
God's image. Being free to act, and in no danger of 
dismissal by a board, he imparts knowledge in a large 
and liberal way, and does not fear to try occasional 
experiments. The teachers of public schools should 
also have something of this honorable Kberty. Over- 
sight we well enough understand that they require ; 
strict responsibility is what we would constantly hold 
them to ; swift discharge be theirs should they prove 
incompetent or unfaithful in any way; but this need 
not prevent them from enjoying a certain degree of 
independence, nor from being permitted to put their 
own minds into their own work. It is a question 
whether this self-reliance is sufficiently encouraged; 
and yet without it no teacher can respect himself or 
his vocation. If he is what he should be, intelligent, 
conscientious, and well-informed, there is surely no 
danger in sujBFering him to have some personality of his 
own. He, at any rate, is personally responsible for the 
progress of those committed to his charge, — responsible 



WOMEN EDUCATORS. 537 

to a liigher Power than the board ; and he should feel 
that he is at liberty to bring to the work something 
of his own individuality. Make him a mere drill-ser- 
geant, and he will always be neglecting his duties, and 
always thinking of the time when he can afford to be 
mustered out. But give his mind a field to work in, 
and freedom to work, and make his labor the means 
of his own intellectual progress, and he will cling to 
a profession which he finds to be truly liberal, and 
become an invaluable co-operator with the legislature 
in the business of public education. There would be 
no temptation then to fly away from school-keeping 
to law, physic, divinity, civil engineering, or shop- 
keeping. Well paid, trusted, respected, and in some 
instances even revered, the teacher would by his 
example and his suggestions help us to solve these 
problems which are becoming so troublesome, should 
they come to vex us at all. There would be no ques- 
tion then of abandoning the whole system of public 
education. The sheer force and character of those 
engaged in it would alone perpetuate it." 

The problem of employing women as principals of 
public schools, even of the high and grammar depart- 
ments, may be considered solved, so many women 
having proved themselves abundantly qualified to fill 
that station. Sarah J. Baker, a native of Nantucket, 
teaching in Roxbury ; Charlotte M. Gardner, and 
Minnie Austin, both natives of the same island, the 
one in Philadelphia and the other in San Francisco, — 
have helped to solve it. 

New York City has had such able service from Kath- 
KRiNB (White) Perry, Amy B. Butts, Agnes Bar- 
tram Washburn, and others, as faithful teachers, able 



538 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

to govern and direct, as well as to teach from books, 
that the problem is no longer doubtful there. More 
women should occupy the place of principal, and find, 
as Jersey City has found, with Mary S. Beal in office, 
that women have ability in superintending as well as in 
teaching. And always they should receive the same 
salary as any male teacher who occupies a similar 
position. Work in quality and quantity, and not sex, 
should limit the compensation. Among teachers of 
private schools, Christiana Rounds of Maine, and 
Sarah R. Smith of Massachusetts (the one formerly 
a teacher in the Brooklyn Polytechnical Institute, the 
other in State Normal School at Salem, Mass.), should 
be mentioned. Their school is in Brooklyn, N.Y. 
Anna C. Brackett is among the educational torces m 
New York City, laboring in her private school and with 
voice and pen for the good cause. " Time would fail 
me to tell " of the sisters M. Jennie, Lizzie, and Ellen 
E. Miles, who have taught successfully, — the latter 
fourteen years, the first named over twenty, — and of 
thousands of others who are doing grand service to 
the youth of our land. The women teachers in our 
public schools are among the most faithful and useful, 
but are too often subject to the injustice of doing the 
same work a man teacher does, for only half or two- 
thirds the pay. An instance can be mentioned whore 
a male principal received eighteen hundred dollars, and 
the female assistant only six hundred dollars, and it 
could be proved that her work was double in quantity 
and better in quality than the man's ; and this is only 
one instance in a vast number everywhere occurring. 
The second century will show a different state of 
things ; for already women are being placed on school 
boards, and, when there is political equality between 
the sexes, justice will be insured. 



WOMEN EDU0ATOE8. 539 

A Boston paper thus refers to one who has served on 
Bk school board : — 

"Miss Clabissa Butler, of Groton, died in this 
city last Wednesday after a long illness. She was a 
daughter of the late Caleb Butler, Esq., the historian 
of the town. She will be greatly missed by her neigh- 
bors and townsfolk, as she occupied a position of 
remarkable usefulness. For the last forty years she 
had been closely connected with the local charities and 
the questions of public education ; and she had been so 
capable in whatever duties she had undertaken that it 
will be difficult for any one to fill her place. She 
inherited her father's antiquarian taste, and was more 
famihar with the history of the town than any other 
person. At one time she was the preceptress of the 
Lawrence Academy at Groton ; and of late years she 
has served as a member of the school committee, where 
her opinions were always justly treated with great 
deference. She took an active part in the Groton 
Public Librar}% and made her influence felt in various 
directions for the benefit of her townspeople. Her loss 
will be felt in many different walks of life. Apart, 
however, from her cultivation and strength of mind, 
she will be remembered best for her conscientious and 
Christian life." 

SoPflLA. S. Cornell inaugurated the progressive sys- 
tem of teaching geography. Though her books have 
been superseded in our ])ublic schools, they have only 
been replaced by others based upon her plan, for which 
plan she is entitled to great credit, as every educator 
knows. Miss Cornell was born in New London, Conn. 
She died in Owego, N. Y., in 1875. She commenced 
teaching at the age of fifteen, and was for many years 
Drincipal of a public school, but gave up teaching to 



540 V70MKN OF THE CENTURY. 

engage in the publication of her well-known series ol 
school geographies. 

Age does not seem to cause any diminution in zeal 
to the lovers of learning ; for we are told " One of the 
earliest applications for a place in the School of Zool- 
ogy, held this summer at Cornell University, was from 
a lady fifty years old, one who has been teaching nat- 
ural history in one of the largest cities for thirty years. 
One of the most active and enthusiastic pupils at the 
Anderson School was nearly sixty years of age." 

Mention should be made of the colleges in oui- land 
for women, but for lack of space. Vassar College, 
built and endowed by its noble founder at a cost of 
half a million, has been the only college where woman's 
education has been provided for as liberally as in 
colleges for men. The Smith College at Northampton, 
founded by Miss Sophia Smith, bids fair to rival 
Vassar in time, and be a worthy monument to a worthy 
woman. 

The following ladies form part of the faculty of 
Smith College : Miss Sarah W. Humphrey, daughter 
of the late Pres. Humphrey, is at the head of the 
department of history ; Miss Maria Whitney, sister 
of Prof. Whitney of Yale, takes French and German ; 
and Miss Mary A. Hastings, late principal of Hamil- 
ton Seminary, New York, mathematics. Mrs. E. E. 
Allen is matron. 

Many towns and cities, in New England especially, 
have elected women on the school-boards. Of one 
elected as a supervisor in Boston, " The Boston Jour- 
aaJl " says, — 

•' Miss LuoRETiA Crocker was first brought to the 
attention of the public three years ago, when, by the 
unanimous voice of the citizens of Ward 11 (now Ward 



::^ 




WOMEN EDUCATOE8. 543 

18), she was elected as a member of the old school 
committee ; and the excellent judgment and sound 
learning she displayed in all measures affecting the 
welfare of the schools made her a very acceptable 
candidate for the re-organized school-system. Her 
election to the position of supervisor was urged by 
many of the best citizens of Boston ; and it will give 
general satisfaction." 

WeUesley CoUege for women is justly entitled to 
mention, and its founder, Henry F. Durant, to great 
praise. The noble structure stands on the shore of 
Lake Waban, in Massachusetts (named for John Waban, 
a fellow-laborer with the apostle to the Indians, John 
Eliot), and is one of the most.elegant, and best arranged 
for comfort and study, in the world. This is believed 
to be the only college in the world whose faculty is 
composed wholly of women. " The Washington Chron- 
icle" of Nov. 14, 1875, contains a long and interesting 
article concerning this college, from which the follow- 
ing is taken : — 

" The coiirse of study is intended to be as complete 
and thorough as that at Harvard, including full courses 
in the higher mathematics, Latin, Greek, and the mod- 
ern languages ; and, although Greek is an optional 
study, a large class of young ladies have already entered 
upon its pursuit. German is to have the foremost place 
in the curriculum of the modern languages ; and thor- 
oughness of study is to be the aim of every department. 
Systematic study of the Scriptures will be included in 
the course ; and Christian influences will be made 
prominent in all departments. The resident teachers, 
from the president down, are women, though the special 
lecturers wiU be selected largely from the opposite sex. 



544 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

Paramount to every other qualification in a twacher is 
that of vital piety ; and she must be one who, having 
consecrated herself to Christ, will seek opportunities to 
win the students to a loving, trusting faith. 

" The total number of the faculty is twenty-eight, but 
several of the teachers have not yet reported. The 
names of those already on duty are as follows : — 

" Miss Ada L. Howard, president ; Miss Mary Horton, 
professor of Greek ; Miss Sarah Glazier, of astronomy 
and mathematics ; Misses Lucia F. Clark, Helen Stork, 
Catharine Worcester, and Esther E. Thompson, of 
Latin ; Jennie Nelson, of Latin and French ; Sarah 
Willard, of French, German, and Italian ; L. C. Hall, 
of French; Bessie T, Capen, of chemistry and mineral- 
ogy ; Susan B. Hallowell, of natural history ; Sophia B. 
Horr, of grammar, physical geography, and drawing ; 
Sarah P. Eastman, of history ; Frances Emerson, of 
history and algebra ; Ellen Gow, of mental and moral 
science, and composition ; Elizabeth M. Benson, of 
arithmetic and English literature; Mary M. Burnham, 
of English literature ; Gertrude E. Randall, of music ; 
Mary Currie, of elocution. There are, in addition, two 
non-resident professors of music, Messrs. Edward A. 
Paine and Charles E. Morse, of Boston ; and Prof. 
Walter Smith will give advice and lectures in the de- 
partment of art education. Miss Howard, the presi- 
dent, is a graduate of Holyoke Seminary, and has had 
much experience at the head of educational institutions. 
The administration of the domestic branches of the 
institution devolves upon Miss H. A. Hurd, the super- 
intendent, who was formerly in charge of the Boston 
Young Woman's Christian Association Home. She is 
assisted by Miss Walker. A chief baker, an engineer, 
and a porter constitute the entire force of the masculine 



WOMEK EDUCATORS. 545 

sex in the college ; while eight laundresses and two or 
three servants in the kitchen make up the personnel 
of the college, independent of the pupils. This is 
believed to be the only college in the world, of which 
the entire faculty is composed of women. The students 
are from all parts of the North, West, and Middle 
States, Maryland, and Virginia, and some from Canada. 
The accommodations are for three hundred ; and fully 
two hundred applications for admission were rejected." 

By the kindness of a friend the following account is 
presented of the lady — Alice E. Freeman, Ph. D. — 
who is now (1882) president of WelFesley College : — 

" Miss Alice E. Freeman was born in Colesville, 
Broome County, N. Y., February 21, 1855, the eldest of 
the four children of James and Elizabeth (Higley) Free- 
man. Her parents were bravely at work tilling the soil 
and studying medicine together at every leisure moment. 
She is, therefore, by an active predestination, the daugh- 
ter of both zeal and culture. Dr. Freeman, who is now 
in the successful practice of his profession in the State of 
Michigan, originally removed his family to Pennsylvania 
while he completed his college course. From this point 
he took them to Windsor, N. Y., a charming spot on the 
Susquehanna, whose natural scenery and admirable acad- 
emy gave to Miss Freeman an excellent physique and a 
good education. She was already old enough to share 
the responsibilities of the household, and as she developed 
a love for the higher branches of study it was inevitable 
that she should think of and prepare for Vassar. 

" But at this time the University of Michigan opened 
its doors to co-education, and at once Miss Fieeman's 
resolution was taken. Although imperfectly prepared in 
one or two of their more rigid requirements, she resolved 
to be among the " pioneers," and was able then and after- 
wards to satisfy fully the severe demands of that curricu- 



046 WOMEN OF THE CENT UK Y. 

lum. It is not too high praise to say that to her is due a 
very notable share of the great success of that somewhat 
hazardous experiment. Her simplicity and directness of 
character, her thorough and womanly self-respect, her 
earnest and faithful scholarship, and her large and un- 
sectarian Christian spirit, — all these exerted an influ- 
ence of which it is hard to estimate the value. That 
her Alma Mater, at its recent Commencement, bestowed 
upon her its highest honor — that of Doctor of Philoso- 
phy — by a unanimous vote of the Regents and Faculty, 
and without any examination, is enough to show the 
merit of her work. 

" Miss Freeman graduated with her class in 1876, and 
for a year was an instructor in the academy at Geneva 
Lake, Wis., teaching Greek, Latin, and the higher math- 
ematics. In 1877 she became preceptress of the high 
school at East Saginaw, Mich., and in 1879 she was in- 
vited to the chair of history in Wellesley College. In 
November, 1881, she became acting president, and in 
June, 1882, accepted the presidency of the institution. 

*' By those who know her best Miss Freeman is espe- 
cially esteemed for her quick sympathies, her sincere 
enthusiasm, her devotion to the cause of higher education 
among women, her capacity and courage in carrying out 
her convictions, and particularly for a most lovely and 
Christian charity, which creates an atmosphere of purity 
and earnestness throughout all her work. The only 
limit to her own self-sacrificing energy appears to be her 
physical strength. She is yet too young, however, to 
fail of that flexibility and adaptation of thought and 
force which should make her duties still easier to her in 
the years which are to come. The words of Lowell's 
poem are peculiarly descriptive of her : — 

" ' She doeth little kindnesses, 
Which most leave undone, or despise ; 



WOMEN EDUCATORS. 547 

For naught that seth one heart at ease, 
And giveth happiness or peace, 
Is low-esteemed in her eyes.' " 

Thoiigh much is left unwritten that perhaps ought 
to find place here, this chapter must now close with an 
article from ' The Liberal Christian,' on " Woman and 
Education in the West: " — 

" A clever woman tells the readers of ' The New 
Century for Woman ' how her hitherto much-abused 
and restricted sisters are rapidly and successfully en- 
croaching upon the pedagogic territory until recently 
occupied almost exclusively by ' second-grade men.' 
Her letter, which we print nearlv in full, bristles with 
telling facts. 

" ' The West is bending all her energies toward the 
solution of the educational problem. Iowa took the 
lead five years ago in appointing a woman as superin- 
tendent of schools. To-day that State has ten counties 
superintended by women, while Illinois, swift to follow 
a wise departure, has eleven. One of these, Maby 
Allen West, was formerly an editorial writer in Phila- 
delphia. She is liberally endowed with common sense 
(a somewhat rare talent), and is an able member of the 
corps. All of these women are doing good work under 
a severe test ; for the duties of a superintendent, in a 
large county whose towns are scattered, are by no 
means light. A gentleman who canvasses the educa- 
tional field of the North-west, and is acquainted with 
the workers and their work, assures me that the women 
filling these positions are more earnest, more faithful, 
and more able, than the men in similar places. Of 
course only the strongest women secure these appoint- 
ments, 80 slow is prejudice in yielding to policy. Hith- 
erto an inferior grade of ability has been tolerated, if 



548 WOMEN OF THE CENTTJEY. 

only it were clothed in the traditional broadcloth. 
But sentiment is rapidly changing. Square pegs are 
being put into square holes, and second-grade men are 
being quietly replaced by first-grade women. So large 
a town as Bloomington, in this State, has had the wis- 
dom to secure the best talent in the market by electing 
for its superintendent of schools Miss Sauah E. Ray- 
mond. One who knows assures me that the schools 
are in fine condition under the new rSgime. Daven 
port, lo., has also put her schools into the hands of 
a woman. These towns are clear-eyed enough to see 
that they are getting a better article for their money. 
With similar wise economy, Chicago has placed her 
twenty primary schools under the charge of women. 
These average five hundred pupils each, while several 
number over one thousand. Two of the large gram- 
mar schools have been finely conducted by women prin- 
cipals for several years ; and, to the credit of Chicago 
be it stated, the salaries paid were determined by the 
work, and not by the sex, of the workers. 

" ' Women have enjoyed a monopoly of the graces of 
humility and submission. They have been " impoged 
upon " until it has become unfeminine to challenge a 
decent foothold in the world of work. Co-education 
and liberal training are putting things upon a diflferent 
basis. The Chicago University has had a part both in 
the wrongs and the rightings that tread so closely upon 
each other's heels in this age. Until two years ago the 
institution restricted its privileges to young men. 
Among the instructors, however, were two ladies, the 
daughters of the eminent Greek scholar. Prof. James 
R. Boise. One of these, a graduate of Ann Arbor and 
a remarkably fine Greek scholar, was her father's chosen 
assistant. The other, as the result of long and special 



WOMEN EDUCATORS. 549 

training both at home and abroad, excelled in German 
and French, and taught those branches in the Univer- 
sity. These two women, although they did excellent 
work for years, and helped in no slight degree to build 
up the reputation of the college for thorough linguistic 
training, were not only paid at starvation rates, but 
were also not named in the catalogue with the corps of 
instructors. 

'"These women were too genuine to push their way. 
they simply waited for slow-footed justice. The elder, 
when offered a degree by the Evanston University, said, 
" No, I will wait till my own college sees fit to confer it 
upon me." The tardy recognition came ; the degree 
was bestowed, and this year the name of the younger 
sister appears in the catalogue. It is but a courtesy ; 
but it is the index, let us hope, of a larger justice. 
Women, the sensible ones, care less for the titles than 
for what they represent in hard cash. Even at the top- 
most round of this profession, we need not fear that 
generous recognition of value received will blunt those 
delicate gra'^oR which spring from self-denial. The old 
catchword " demand and supply " leaps to the front the 
moment one ventures to open this vexed question. Pray 
reconstruct your political economies, if they will not 
meet such a case as the following. 

" * Two years ago, when the trustees of this Univer- 
sity levelled the barricades, and invited young women 
to enter, a lady was placed at the head of the new 
department. Miss Mary E. Chapin, M.A., is a remark- 
able woman, both in natural endowments and acquired 
knowledge. She has given a lifetime to teaching in 
schools of high grade, and is in every respect the peer 
of her associates in this new field. She is contented in 
her work, and hopeful of the better day for women, the 



550 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

sign of which she chiefly finds in the growing willing- 
ness and even eagerness of girls to submit to the long 
and toilsome training which is the condition of success. 
Her services in this one direction — helping girls to 
the real whys and wherefores — are invaluable. One 
cannot see her making a rounded whole of her life 
work, and getting her meagre fractional equivalent at 
cash valuations, without longing for a new Adam — 
Smith — to appear. 

" ' The co-educational test in Chicago i^ meeting the 
warmest wishes of its friends. Thirty young women 
have this year availed themselves of the chances, and 
their scholarship is of high grade. As a rule, the but- 
terflies are too fond of summer weather to enter these 
gnm walls. They are fitted to bear neither the intel- 
lectual nor the moral strain, and in the eternal fitness 
of things they ought to stay away. A bright girl who 
has just entered upon the classical course of this uni- 
versity said to rae a week ago, " When we girls first 
went into the Greek class, the boys thought they must 
help us out at the board; but they have found that 
girls can learn Greek, and they are not so officious as 
they were." Several other persons are " finding out 
that girls can learn Greek," though the world has 
moved in a circle since Sir Roger Ascham's day. 
There are ups and downs in all sorts of progress, else 
what a climb there would be I and what a tremendous 
backward lurch if there were no valleys I ' " 




CHAPTER XVI. 



WOMEN PHYSICIANS. 



Harriot K. Hunt and sister — Mercy B. Jaclvson — The Influence of 
Marie Zakrzewska and the Blaclvwell sisters — Clemence Lozier — 
Mary Putnam Jacobi — Susan Dimock, and others. 



" Such gifts are woman's priceless dower: yet, sisters mine, how few 
Dare take the precious burden up, and woman's true work do! " 

Mary M. Chase. 

" The beloved physician." — Col. iv. 14. 



"TTTHEN speaking of Mrs. Hill's school for girls in 
W Athens, Greece, Mrs. Hale very sensibly says, 
" Only one branch — an important one — of instruction 
needs to be added to make the system of Mars Hill 
complete, — that of preserving health. Women are the 
natural guardians of infancy : they should be carefully 
instructed in medical science. Anatomy, physiology, 
hygiene, are studies more appropriate to their condi- 
tion and duties than to those of men. That the one sex 
has monopolized all the knov/ledge on this science is no 



^52 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY 

reason they should continue to hold it, any moie than, 
because the old Greek philosophers taught only by lec- 
tures, therefore books should be thrown aside. The 
.art of printing has opened the temple of learning to 
woman ; every year is giving new and unquestionable 
proofs that she is the heaven-appointed help of man in 
all that really improves the race. Health is one of the 
first earthly blessings : it is necessary to the best devel- 
opment of the soul, as well as the body ; let the art or 
science which teaches how to preserve it and to restore 
it be taught to those who are watchers by the cradle 
of infancy, and soothers by the couch of suffering. 
The whole East, Mohammedans as well as Christians, 
might be reached by the ministry of pious female 
physicians of their own sex. The important practice 
of midwifery has never passed into the hands of men 
in the land where the son of a midwife was the wisest 
heathen philosopher who has ever appeared. The 
greatest benefaction the mission at Athens could now 
confer on humanity would be to educate female physi- 
cians, into whose hands might be given the care of 
women and children." 

That benefaction the world is receiving from the 
various medical colleges in America now open to 
women ; and all over our laud there are now scattered 
educated women physicians who are doing successfully 
the work they have been appointed by God to do ; for 
it is in the ordering of a wise Providence that women 
should have physicians of their own sex, and that chil- 
dren should be cared for by the natural care-takers of 
the little ones, who with motherly aptness can pre- 
scribe according to their varied needs. The first woman 
who obtained the degree of M.D. in our country was 
^Elizabeth Blackwkll. She was bom in England, 



WOMEN PHYSICIANS. 553 

it is true, but came to this country when about eleveu 
years old, and, since her example has proved such a 
stimulus to so many women, is deserving high place in 
a record of the women of our first century. In 1843 
she first resolved to be a physician; and after studying 
Greek, Latin, &c., in 1845 she went to North Carolina, 
where she taught French and music, and read medicine 
with Dr. John Dickson. She then went to Charleston, 
S.C., where she taught music, and read industriously 
under Dr. S. H. Dickson, since a professor of practice 
in the University of New York. In 1847 she came to 
Philadelphia, for the same study. That summer Dr. 
J. M. Allen, professor of anatomy, afforded her excel- 
lent opportunities for dissection in his private ana- 
tomical rooms. The winter following, she attended 
her first full course of lectures at Geneva, N.Y. The 
next summer she resided at the Blockley Hospital, 
Philadelphia, where she had the kindest attentions 
from Dr. Benedict, the principal physician, and the 
very large range for observation which its great variety 
and number of cases afford. The succeeding winter, 
she attended her second course at Geneva, and gradu- 
ated regularly at the close of the session. Her thesia 
was upon ship-fever, which she had ample opportuni- 
ties for observing at Blockley. It was so ably written 
that the faculty of Geneva determined to give it pub- 
lication. Mrs. Hale adds, " It is in keeping with my 
idea of this story to add that the proceeds of her own 
industry have been adequate to meet the entire ex- 
penses of her medical education, — about eight hundred 
dollars. My purpose in detailing these particulars is, 
to give the fullest notion of her enterprise and object. 
She gave the best summary of it that can be put into 
words, in her reply to the president of the Geneva Col- 



554 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

lege, when he presented her diploma. Departing from 
the usual form, he rose, and addressed her in a manner 
80 emphatic and unusual, that she was surprised into a 
response. ' I thank you, sir,' said she. ' With the help 
of the Most High, it shall be the duty of my life to shed 
honor on this diploma.' " 

And this she has done, till her name is a synonyme 
for medical worth. In 1849 Dr. Blackwell went to 
Europe, where she visited hospitals, being received 
with courtesy, and continued the study and practice of 
her profession. She is now in England ; but her influ- 
ence is felt on this side of the Atlantic. Her sister, 
Dr. Emily Blackwell, has since entered the medical 
profession, and is now a successful practitioner, besides 
being at the head of a hospital and medical college for 
women in New York City. These two physicians, the 
Blackwell sisters, may be regarded as pioneers in that 
profession, whose names will be held in grateful and 
fadeless remembrance. Besides these, much credit be- 
longs to Dr. Marie Zakrzewska for opening the 
way for women into the medical profession. Dr. Zakr- 
zewska is a foreigner, but has been many years in this 
country, and has exerted a marked and beneficent 
influence among the younger women of the century. 
Her great skill and success have won renown for her- 
self, and encouraged many others. Mrs. Caroline H. 
Dall has written a sketch of this physician's life, which 
is worthy a place in every woman's library, and which 
shows how energy and perseverance can overcome 
obstacles. In her admirable book, " The College, the 
Market, and the Court," Mrs. Dall has several pages 
devoted to the subject of " Medical Education," and 
speaks of one college and one hospital in Boston where 
education is given, one also in Springfield, and one in 



WOMEN PHYSICIANS. 555 

Philadelphia. There have been since at least two 
medical colleges for women in New York City ; and 
there are now hundreds of women doctors in our 
land, earning incomes of from ten to twenty thousand 
dollars. A few only of the women physicians can be 
specified here, and they, for obvious reasons, only 
those best known to the world, or well known to the 
writer. 

Drs. Helen Morton and Luoy E. Sewall are 
worthy physicians in Boston, at the New England Hos- 
pital, where they have been very successful. One of 
the most successful women surgeons in the land. Dr. 
Susan T. Dimock, after thorough preparation here and 
in European hospitals, was drowned in the steamship 
" Schiller " on her way to England. She studied in 
Zurich ; and her graduating thesis was considered a 
careful and scientific analysis of a diflBcult subject. It 
was published in German with this title : " Uber die 
Verschiedenen Formen des Puerperal Fieber. Inaug- 
ural Dissertation by Susan T. Dimock, aus Boston." ' 
The remains of Dr. Dimock were j-ecovered from 
the wreck of the " Schiller ; " and her funeral took 
place June 4, 1875, from the Church of the Disciples, 
Boston; the pastor, Kev. Dr. J. Freeman Clarke, offici- 
ating. Eight eminent male physicians of Boston were 
the pall-bearers. ''Dr. Clarke recalled with marked 
eloquence and tenderness the salient traits of Dr. 
Dimock's character, her gentleness and strength, her 
sweetness and cheerfulness. He also read extracts 
from a letter, narrating a few incidents of the wreck 
immediately connected with the death of Miss Dim- 
ock. " When last seen," the letter said, " she was 
kneeling on the deck, praying aloud; and, as she 

1 On the Different Forma of Puerperal Fevei. 



556 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

knelt, a sea broke over the vessel, and swept her with 
a group near her out of human sight or aid When 
she was taken from the water, her face wore a peaceful, 
even a happy expression. The inhabitants of the island 
were touched by its sweet repose ; and the body was 
presently strewn with flowers by compassionate men 
and women. Even the rude fishermen who bore the 
body to the steamer which brought her home felt 
the same influence ; one of them saymg, as they left 
the bier, ' We laid her down as softly as ever her 
own mother did.' " A free bed at the hospital in 
Boston, where she was the honored and beloved phy- 
sician, is established as a memorial. 

Among the first, if not the first, to practise medicine 
in this country, was Dr. Harriot K. Hunt. Her auto- 
biographical work called " Glances and Glimpses " 
is Ro complete a statement of her struggles, that the 
reader is advised to peruse it, and excuse the brevity 
of this notice. She was born Nov. 9, 1805 ; and her 
sister, Sarah Augusta Hunt, who was also a physi- 
oiati, was born Dec. 25, 1808. Dr. Harriot died at the 
age of sixty-three, Jan. 2, 1875, in Boston, where she 
had spent her useful life. Mrs. Lucy Stone says of her, 
" She acquired a medical education by private instruc- 
tion from Dr. Nott, and commenced a practice nearly 
forty years ago, which became so successful and 
remunerative that she acquired an independent for- 
tune. ... As soon as she had property to be taxed 
she felt so keenly the essential injustice of taxation 
without representation, that every year, Av^hen she paid 
her tax, she sent with it to the city treasurer a protest, 
setting forth the principle that taxation and represen- 
tation are inseparable, and protesting against the wrong 
done to ali women who were compelled to pay taxes, 



"WOMEN PHYSICIANS. 557 

and were yet denied a vote. She continued this practice 
more than a quarter of a century, till the end of her 
life. Her practical example of a successful business 
life, always maintained with a cheerful spirit, is a good 
legacy and lesson to all young women. She will be 
missed by many, but especially by those who sought 
her advice as a physician, and who were helped to 
health, as well by her cheerful spirit as by her medi- 
cine." 

" The Woman's Journal " ^ says, " Dr. Anna E. 
Bbomax,l of Chester, Penn., a graduate of the 
Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia, has returned 
from Europe, where she has spent three years visiting 
the hospitals for women in Paris, Vienna, and Loudon, 
thus perfecting herself in her profession, in which she 
bids fair to excel. She delivered this week, in Phila- 
delphia, a very interesting and lucid description of 
the management and nursing in the various hospitals 
which she has visited." 

The same paper on the same date referred to the fact 
that Rebecca Hanna was graduated at the medical 
department of the Iowa State University with the 
highest honors ; and was awarded the first prize, a fine 
case of surgical instruments, for her specimens of sur- 
gical anatomy. She went to Burlington, lo., to prac- 
tise medicine, and applied for membership to the Des 
Moines County Medical Association, but was refused 
because she was a woman. 

Catherine Underwood Jewell, M.D., is men- 
tioned with warm commendation by Mrs. Sarah 
BuRGES Stearns (herself a faithful worker for 
women ever since the hour when, as a young student, 
she sought to open the doors of Michigan University 

1 For Jan. 16, 1875. 



558 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

to woman, as a lecturer, writer, and philanthropist). 
Dr. Jewell died in Minnesota, March 30, 1873. She 
was a graduate of the Woman's Medical College of 
Pennsylvania. " She was the dear friend and almost 
constant companion of Dr. Ann Preston, who did so 
much for the college during the many years that she 
was connected with it as professor of physiology and 
hygiene. Miss Underwood was very thorough in her 
preparation for medical practice. For nearly five years 
she continued her studies at this institution and at the 
New York Infirmary for Women under the supervision 
of Drs. Ehzabeth and Emily Blackwell. She was a 
oirthright Quaker, and was liberal in her religious 
views. She practised for some time in Bloomington, 
111., and was there married to Dr. P. A. Jewell of Ann 
Arbor, Mich., where she practised till, robbing herself 
of outer clothing for another's protection, she suffered 
from an attack of pneumonia ; and thence came con- 
sumption, to cure which she and her husband removed 
to Minnesota in 1867. But liealth only came to her in 
a fairer clime, ' the land which no mortal may know.' " 
Dr. Clemence J. LoziER has been very successful 
as a physician in New York City. She was born Dec. 
11, 1813, at Plainfield, N.J. A sketch of her career 
may be found in " Eminent Women of the Age." " In 
1849 she attended her first course of lectures at the 
Central New York College, and graduated at the Syra- 
cuse Eclectic College in 1853, having previously applied 
for admission to several other institutions, and been 
refused on the ground that no female student could 
be received. ... In 1867 she visited Europe, where 
every facility was afforded her for the inspection of 
hospitals ; and eminent men received her, and intro- 
duced her to their associates with most gratifying 



WOMEN PHYSICIANS. 559 

courtesy." In 1863, by her untiring efforts, a woman's 
medical college was established in New York. Dr. 
Lozier acknowledges the great help of Dr. Lydia F. 
FowLlER, and her husband L. N. Fowler, with that of 
Mrs. Charlotte Fowler Wells ; but above all she 
speaks of being indebted " to an unwavering faith in a 
present Saviour, and his constant, inspiring love." 

Dr. Hannah E. Longshore was the first to put 
up her professional " sign " in Philadelphia. She was 
born May 30, 1819, in Maryland. Her parents were 
Quakers. She married when twenty-two ; and, when 
the youngest of her two children was four years old, 
she commenced the study of medicine with her hus- 
band's brother. Prof. I. S. Longshore, whose books and 
maps, skeletons, &c., were at her service. She was one 
of the ten members who composed the first graduating 
class of the Woman's Medical College in Pennsylvania. 
She was immediately elected " Demonstrator of Anat- 
omy," and served acceptably in that capacity. After- 
ward she debved lectures to women on medical themes. 
She afterward relinquished all but private practice, 
and in this was remarkably successful. Her sister, 
Jane V. Meyers, M.D., resided in her family, and 
had a large practice. An older half-sister, Mary F. 
Thomas, M.D., now residing in Indiana, has been 
active and successful for several ^^ears. *' For two 
years Dr. Thomas was editor, and for a longer time 
contributor, to a semi-monthly journal devoted mainly 
to the cause of woman, published in Richmond, lo. 
During the Rebellion she was occupied much in collect- 
ing and distributing supplies ; and a portion of the 
time her husband, O. Thomas, M.D., and herself, had 
charge of a hospital in Tennessee." 

Dr. Ann Preston was born in December, 1830, in 



5G0 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

West Grove, Penn., of Quaker parentage. She was a 
professor in the Woman's Medical College of Penn- 
sylvania, and at one time the " dean." 

Rachel L. Bodley is now the dean of that insti- 
tution, and a fine lecturer on chemistry to the medical 
students, as the writer can testify from the evidence of 
a delighted ear. 

Dr. Mercy B. Jackson, of Boston, is deserving of 
high place among the physicians who have done pio- 
neer work, and helped to make the path easier for the 
women who come after them. She was the daughter 
of Constant Ruggles, Esq., and was born in Hardwick, 
Mass., Sept. 17, 1802. In 1823 she married Rev. John 
Bisbee, a Universalist pastor in Hartford, Conn., and 
afterward in Portland, Me. In the midst of his work, 
her husband died suddenly, leaving her with two chil- 
dren to support. She at once opened a school for 
young ladies in Portland. "Superintending her house, 
doing the sewing for herself and little ones, studying 
French and Spanish with a view to making herself 
more competent as a teacher, and giving lessons in 
drawing on Wednesdays and Saturdays, filled every 
hour with its special work ; and the unremitting toil 
soon began to tell upon her health." In 1833 she 
married Capt. Daniel Jackson, and assumed the place 
of mother to his four children. Her two made six in 
the family ; and to these eight more of their own were 
added, making her the mother and stepmother of four- 
teen in all. Mrs. Jackson is a remarkable woman, or 
she could never have accomplished so much in caring 
for the physical and intellectual needs of her large 
family. The time came after her husband's death, and 
the children were old enough to be left, that she felt 
herself at liberty to take a regular course of study' in 



WOMEN PHYSICIANS. 561 

the New England Medical College, though she had prao 
tised already eighteen years in Plymouth, Mass. Since 
receiving her diploma, " she has been established in 
Boston, commanding a large and lucrative practice, and 
numbering among her patients some of the first fam- 
ilies in the city and the adjacent towns. Too fully 
occupied by her profession to devote much time to any 
other work, Dr. Jackson is an earnest sympathizer 
with the reforms of the day, and a judicious friend to 
her own sex. Every year of her successful and benefi- 
cent life has been an eloquent argument in favor of a 
more thorough education for woman, and her right to 
work in any field of labor to which she feels attracted." 
Long may her motherly presence be felt among the 
reformers of our times ! 

Dr. Sarah A. Colby was born in Sanbornton, N.H., 
May 31, 1824. Her parents were Ebenezer and Sally 
Colby, who had eight children, of whom only two sur- 
vived ; and both of these are women physicians. The 
intelligent father has " passed on : " the excellent moth- 
er still lives at the advanced age of eighty-four, her 
mind as active and her heart as kind as ever. Both 
their daughters were educated at the Sanbornton Acad- 
emy. Sarah devoted some time to teaching, mean- 
while cherishing a desire, early felt, for the study of 
medicine, which grew with each passing year. She 
was sometimes interrupted in her studies by ill health, 
which gave her during treatment an opportunity of 
observing that an absolute need exists for noble Chris- 
tian women with strong judgment and large scientific 
attainment to occupy the professional field as earnest co- 
laborers with their brothers for the benefit of suffering 
humanity, and especially for the help of their own sex. 

Dr. Colby studied in Philadelphia, and, after gradu- 



562 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

ation, was at first an allopathisi, but eclectic in prac- 
tice ; yet within a few years she has j referred to 
practise as a homoeopathist. In a letter to the writer 
she says, " I am satisfied that the principle of material 
doses of medicine is not calculated to develop the 
higher spiritual nature as readily as a minimum or spir- 
itual dose. I really believe that the materialism of the 
present age does more to develop disease, and retain it, 
than every thing else combined. Understanding that the 
soul^ which is substance.^ should control the hody^ which 
is matter^ would do much toward recovering from bodily 
ills, and be in harmony with the teachings of Christ, 
and thus bring the soul into spiritual contact with the 
only fountain of life. ' The prayer of faith shall save 
the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up ' (Jas. v. 15). 
To one who comprehends the true philosophy of prayer, 
this will not seem unreasonable. The agitation of the 
woman question has given us, in many colleges of 
learning, co-education of the sexes, which has advanced 
other things. In the earlier years of my professional life, 
it was a hard matter to find a man physician who was 
willing to meet a woman physician on any terms for 
consultation ; while during the last five years it has 
not been an unfrequent occurrence for physicians to 
send their wives and daughters to me for treatment ; 
and, when the cases were discharged cured^ I was gen- 
erously awarded high praise. I have also been called 
to meet in consultation in Boston and other New Eng- 
land cities some of the most scientific men physicians 
of the ttge, from whom I received every courtesy that 
could be tendered to a professional associate. 

" I have devoted my Ufe since 1859 to this great cause 
of removing the sufi"erings of humanity, and therein 
have been a constant recipient of warm affection and 



WOMEN PHYSICIANS. 563 

deep gratitude. The first ten years were given to 
family practice, and the remaining ones to office prac- 
tice, except in cases of special favor. I feel that my 
life-work is still largely in the future. 

*' My sister, Mrs. Esther W. Tayi^or, M.D., was born 
two years later than myself, in the same town ; educa- 
tion, &c., much the same. In early life she married N. 
F. Taylor, Esq., of Cambridgeport, Mass. They have 
one child, a daughter, now Mrs. George Ruston of 
Freeport, 111. When Mrs. Taylor decided to study 
medicine, she was nobly seconded in her efforts by 
her husband and daughter. She graduated from the 
Homoeopathic Medical College of Chicago, Feb. 22, 
1872. In 1875 she became a member of the American 
Institute of Homoeopathy and the Homoeopathic State 
Meoical Society of Illinois. She has a large and suc- 
cessful practice in Freeport, 111." 

Dr. Colby's pleasant office,^ as the writer is well 
aware, is often thronged with patients ; and her success 
in cases that have come under my personal observation 
have merited the praise and gratitude expressed, as 
well as the pecuniary recompense which each has a right 
to desire. Her attention and skill have gained the 
lucrative practice which such a " beloved physician " 
deserves. 

Dr. Lydia a. Jenkins (who has already been men- 
tioned as a preacher) was a practising physician at the 
time of her death, and with her husband, E. S. Jenkins, 
M.D., was conducting the Hygienic Institute at Bing- 
hamton, N.Y. 

Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson is the first woman 
admitted to the American Medical Association. This 
admission was granted in June, 1876. " The Philadel- 
phia Evening Bulletin " of June 2 says, — 

1 17 HaiiHOu Street, Boston. 



564 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

" The doctors have combined millennial with centen- 
nial glories. The largest assemblage of the medical 
profession ever held in America yesterday honored 
itself by bursting the bonds of ancient prejudice, and 
admitting a woman to its membershij. by a vote that 
proved that the long-waged battle is won, and that 
henceforth professional qualification, and vot sex, is to 
be the test of standing in the medical world,. Looking 
back over the past fierce resistance by which every 
advance of woman into the field of medical life was 
met, yesterday's action seems like the opening of a 
scientific millennium. It was a most appropriate time 
and place for the beginning of this new era of medical 
righteousness and peace. Here, in the centennial year, 
in the city of brotherly love, where the first organised 
effort for the medical education of women was made, 
where the oldest and best appointed medical college for 
women in the world is located, and where the fight 
against women's entry into the medical profession 
began and was most hotly waged, was the place to take 
the manly new departures, which, so far as the national 
association is concerned, began yesterday in the elec- 
tion of Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson as a member in 
full standing from the State of Illinois. 

" We heartily congratulate the association on this 
manly abandonment of an old-time prejudice ; and the 
women, that, after patient endurance of much tribula- 
tion, they see of the travail of their soul, and are 
satisfied." 

Dr. Stevenson is a native of Illinois, and is proud 
that she is not only an American, but a Western woman. 
Illinois gave her a birthplace at Buffalo Grove, Ogle 
County, about thirty years ago. She graduated her 



WOMEN PHYSICIANS. 565 

from her State University at Bloomington about ten 
years ago ; and gave her the degree of a doctor of medi- 
cine in her Woman's Medical College of Chicago, about 
one year ago. 

As she was educated for a teacher, she acted in that 
capacity from the time she graduated till five years ago, 
always as principal ; and for her services in dissection she 
has received the State certificate. Five years ago she 
went to Chicago with the purpose of adopting literature 
as a pursuit, and to that end began a course of scien- 
tific study, as the scientific was the style of writing she 
preferred. From the elementary studies of anatomy 
and physiology, she gradually became interested to 
know more of the " human form divine," and so was 
persuaded to take a full medical course. Two of these 
five years she spent in Europe, visiting hospitals, attend- 
ing clinics, and a course of lectures in biology by Prof. 
Huxley. The governor of our State gave her a com- 
mission to the Exposition in Vienna ; and she spent her 
vacations travelling through Italy, France, Switzerland, 
Germany, Great Britain, and Ireland. When she re- 
turned to graduate in the Woman's Hospital Medical 
College of this city, she was elected valedictorian of 
the class, and, after graduating, was appointed to the 
chair of physiology in the same college, and attending 
physician to the Hospital for Women and Children, 
which positions she now occupies. She characteristic- 
ally writes : — 

" Though in possession of two titles, professor, and 
doctor of medicine, I never use either, only when I'm 
obliged to. I'd so much rather be plain Sarah Hackett 
Stevenson, without prefix or suffix. 

" The path I have chosen, or rather that into which 
I have been pushed^ is not a path for the ambitious or 



566 WOMEN OF THE CENTUKY. 

those desirous of fame. One can spend a lifetime in 
scientific work without being known outside of his 
immediate circle. If the amount of vitality which a 
surgeon puts into a single operation, or that a physician 
expends in ' carrying through ' a single case, or that a 
physiologist consumes in a single lecture and experi- 
ment before his class, — if the same amount of energy 
were coined into letters, and published as literature, 
the author's name would be heralded abroad by every 
tongue. The greatest lights in our profession are not 
known, even by name, outside of the profession ; and 
yet is not a scientific, conscientious physician one of 
the world's truest philanthropists ? " 

Very sweetly Dr. Stevenson adds : — 

"As to my religion, I was born and brought up in 
the Methodist Church, and expect to die in it. My 
parents were Episcopalians ; but the Methodist was the 
pioneer church, and my parents joined it rather than 
be without a home. I retain my membership in the 
same old place, preferring its little homely, humble 
altar to any thing I have found elsewhere. Though 
I hold liberal views of Christianity, and though the 
enemies of God have tried to class me as a materialist, 
probably because of my studies, I still cling to the 
sweet restful faith of my childhood. The best place I 
have ever found was at my sainted mother's feet, when 
I prayed ' Now I lay me down to sleep ; ' and the most 
beautiful vision of life I have ever known, is when 1 
believed that four angels watched at the four posts of 
my trundle-bed. I look with great distrust upon every 
thing that tends to rob humanity of its trust in God." 

Dr. Stevenson has not been idle with her pen, — 
letters, essays, sketches, &c. Her book mentioned in 
" Women Scientists " is not the last, it is hoped, with 
which she will bless the world. 



WOMEN PHYSICIANS. 567 

Dr. Sarah R. Adamson Dolley was born March 
11, 1829, and was graduated in medicine Feb. 20, 1851. 
The following year was spent in Blockley Hospital, 
Philadelphia. She was married to Dr. L. C. Dolley 
June 4, 1852, and then removed to Rochester, N.Y. 
During the winter of 1869 and 1870 she attended the 
lectures of Roget, Bouchet, and Girvaldes, of the Ho- 
pital des Enfans Malades, also a special course at the 
Ecole Pratique of the Faculty of Medicine at Paris. 
This year in Europe was the first absence of any length 
after commencing practice. 

Her painful bereavement in the death of her husband 
the 6th of April, 1872, followed by increase of care 
and labor, seriously told upon her health ; and she again 
took a season for rest and travel. In both of her visits 
to Europe she has acquainted herself with the great 
anatomical and pathological collections, both in Great 
Britain and on the Continent, and has visited the noted 
hospitals, and has made the journeys something more 
than seasons of rest and sight-seeing. 

" The Woman's Journal " published a paragraph, 
probably from the pen of Grace Anna Lewis, concern- 
ing her able address before the Woman's Medical Col- 
lege of Philadelphia, where she had been supplying the 
place of a teacher for a season, as follows : — 

" The farewell address delivered recently by Mrs. S. 
R. A. DoUey, M.D., before the Woman's Medical Col- 
lege of Philadelphia, is marked by unusual intellectual 
ability. Its spirit is catholic, and will be ennobling to 
women in any vocation. Mrs. Dolley was one among 
the first of the women who studied and graduated in 
medicine in America. Since that time she has been 
engaged in an extensive and laborious practice, gaining 
experience, mental vigor, learning, breadth, and posi- 



568 WOMEN OF THE CBNTUBY. 

tion, with each succeeding year. She has illustrated in 
her life every precept enforced in her lecture. Indeed, 
its value is enhanced by the fact that it is largely a 
reflex of her own character and experience." 

She is a member of the Monroe County Medical 
Society, and of the Medical Association of Central 
New York, and has had through the years kindly cour- 
tesies extended to her by physicians in consultation ; 
and patients are frequently sent to her by the medical 
brethren. Dr. DoUey modestly writes : — 

" It seems unbecoming to speak of professional suc- 
cess, when my ideal of what a praiseworthy success 
is continues so far in advance of the measure of my 
best attainment. That my advice is sought in obscure, 
grave, and serious cases, I may not deny, and not only 
by those of my friends and neighbors, but by persona 
from distant localities. 

" My highest satisfaction in my profession comes 
from the warding off of impending evil or disaster by 
judicious counsel, or the analyzing of obscure or com- 
plicated or difficult cases ; and to me the highest com- 
pliment is the rest, sense of security, and confidence, 
my patients manifest. It is pleasant to know that my 
services are sought by intelligent people, and to be wel- 
comed to delightful social circles ; for women who essay 
to do what has been supposed to have been question- 
able must necessarily demonstrate to communities by 
years of patient toil, that their innovation is desirable. 

" I never aspired to write or teach, because the ability 
of women in these regards had never seemed to me to 
be so generally questioned, nor the distrust so intense 
and deep-seated, as it has been of their compassing the 
ordinary requirements of the medical profession, and 
having the persistence and patience required to make 



WOMEN PHYSICIANS. 569 

it a life-work. Whether they will extend its useful- 
ness, maintain its integrity, add to its resources, and 
exalt the morale of the profession, time alone can tell. 

"In my student days, and long before, my highest 
ambition was to help to open up to women a higher 
plane of thought and labor, and, for myself, to be a 
careful and skilful physician. More than a quarter 
of a century since, when I first opened a medical 
book, I Uttle dreamed of the possibilities of women of 
this centennial year, when university instruction can 
be had in America, Great Britain, France, Germany, 
and Italy; and as little dreamed of their dangers. 
So much remains for women to do, that now I am 
iU content to have only done the duties that did lie 
nearest to me, and what ' even my enemies, being my 
judges,' say that I have done in this city, — made it 
respectable for a lady to practise medicine; but am 
almost appalled by what I now feel to be as urgently 
demanded of women. It becomes a question whether 
the women who write and speak, and who thus dispel 
prejudice and enlighten the public mind, are not alone 
the notable women of our time, of whom future read- 
ers may care to know ; and those who only translated 
in practice the idea upon which we staked our all, in 
the assumption of the need of women as physicians, 
have necessarily had time, thought, and hand so occu- 
pied in the prehminary study requisite, and in the 
daily round of professional service that followed, that 
we failed aforehand to ask if we were wanted, or to 
declare our convictions that we were needed in the 
profession, or even in any way to settle our sphere 
at all. 

"The first thing demanded seemed to be that we 
must demonstrate that we could practise medicine 



570 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

before asking whether we might do so ; and the 
thought, time, and skill required to make this possible, 
seriously interfered with abstract study and literary 
acquirement. 

" I think it rather remarkable that the movement for 
the medical education of women was not preceded by 
any newspaper or platform agitation." Dr. Dolley's 
parents were Hicksite Friends, but Huguenot blood 
mingled with that of English Quakers ; and she, being 
disowned first for marrying one who was not " a mem- 
ber among Friends," afterwards united with the Con- 
gregational Church, and is at present worshipping in 
her home in Rochester, N.Y., with the Presbyterians. 
She says, " I never fail to be interested in the pros- 
perity of the Church evangelical, by whatever name 
called, seeing nothing hopeful for woman, and no true 
elevation, outside of Christian elevation." 

Dr. Josephine B. Mix is now practising in Chicago, 
having been graduated in New York City, and prac- 
tised with success in that city and vicinity for a few 
years. She was born March 16, 1837, in Wheeling, 
Va., whither her parents had removed from Western 
New York. She is the youngest of eight children. She 
began her work in life with teaching for a short time, 
acting as clerk in a store, and using the needle ; then 
was married, and was one among the army of widows 
whose husbands died for liberty. After various trials 
and struggles, she commenced the study of medicine in 
Philadelphia. She decided, however, to attend the 
Eclectic Medical College of New York City ; and holds 
the first matriculation ticket ever given by that insti- 
tution to a woman, and the fourth ever issued to any 
student. Dr. Mix's maiden name was Dexter; and on 
her father's side she is a descendant of Rev. Gregory 



WOMEN PHYSICIANS. 571 

Dexter, who came to Rhode Island in 1640, and was 
the personal friend of Roger Williams. He was the 
first practical printer who came to this country, and 
was the fourth pastor of the Baptist Church in Provi- 
dence. Dr. Mix is a descendant of the eldest son, in 
the seventh generation. On her mother's side she was 
also of Baptist stock; for her mother's father was 
Rev. Asa Turner, a Baptist minister of Western New 
York. For many years she was connected with the 
same denomination ; but in 1875 united with the Uni- 
versalists, and is now connected with Rev. Dr. Ryder's 
church in Chicago, in which city she is busily engaged 
in a benevolent enterprise and in the work of her pro- 
fession. 

There must come a close to this incomplete chapter. 
The wish arises that some woman of the profession 
will yet prepare a large volume concerning women 
physicians, as the author hopes to do of the women in 
her own profession. 

" The Galaxy " of December, 1868, has an article on 
" Women as Physicians," from which the following 
paragraphs are taken. Speaking of the Philadelphia 
Woman's Medical College it is said, — 

"Subsequently a woman's hospital was founded in 
connection with the college. It went into operation in 
1861. More than a thousand patients are treated annu- 
ally in the several departments of the hospital. The 
resident physician, Dr. Emeline Horton Cleveland, 
after graduating in the college, added to her experi- 
ences a year's residence in the MaternitS at Paris. 
Dr. Cleveland also fills the chair of obstetrics, and 
diseases of women and children in the college, and 
is eminently superior as a practitioner. As a lecturer, 
«he is lucid, eloquent, and earnest. In her social and 



572 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

in her domestic relations as wife and mother, she is 
every way admirable. Her manner is so gentle and so 
purely womanly, that the coarsest and most hardened 
creatures are refined in her presence. She has an unus- 
ually commanding and graceful person ; and her dark 
eyes are of the ' almond shape ' one so often reads 
of, and so rarely sees. She is also most happily free 
from any professional mannerism ; and a stranger from 
conversing with her would hardly dream of her being 
a ' scientific ' woman, although ready to admit her 
very clever and cultivated, and endow her charms with 
that very excellent thing in woman, — a low, sweet 
voice." 

Among the notable graduates of the above college are 
Dr. Elizabeth C, Keller, whose success as a surgeon in 
difficult cases, often by novel and original instruments, is 
widely known in Pennsylvania and New England ; Dr. 
Helen M. Betts, who is her assistant now in Jamaica 
Plain, Mass., and who chiefly attends to diseases of the 
eye ; Dr. Emily White, who has been anatomical dem- 
onstrator, and has studied abroad ; Dr. Almira L. Fowler, 
now Dr. Fowler-Ormsby, who is practising in Orange, 
N, J., having already acquired a competency ; Drs. 
Gleason, of Elmira; Amelia Tompkins, Hamilton ; Hunt, 
Oneida ; Cook, Buffalo ; Nivison, Ithaca ; Jane Payne, of 
Mount Vernon, Ohio ; Laura E. Ross, Milwaukee ; Sarah 
Entricken, Westchester, Penn. ; C. A. Buckel, Boston ; 
Anita E. Tyng, Providence, R. I. ; and Lucy M. Abbott, 
of the New York Infirmary, who is remarkable for her 
energy, her straightforwardness, and quickness of percep- 
tion ; Miss Mary C. Putnam, who graduated in 1864, 
and studied afterward in Paris, and was the first woman 
admitted to visit the School of Medicine in that city, 
having passed a brilliant examination. She has since 
married Dr. Jacobi, and is still engaged in her profes- 
sion. 



WOMEN PHYSICIANS. 573 

Further information enables the author to add of Dr. 
Elizabeth C. Keller that her maiden name was Rex, and 
she was born in 1837, near Gettysburg, Penn. Her first 
husband was Matthias McComsej', who died in 1859, 
leaving her with one son. She superintended an orphan 
asylum in Lancaster, Penn., from 1860 to 1867 ; then 
married George L. Keller, of that city. Was graduated 
by the above mentioned medical college in 1871 ; con- 
ducted a hospital and dispensary in Bedford Street, Phil- 
adelphia, successfully ; afterward accepted the position 
of resident physician at the New England Hospital for 
Women and Children, in Boston. In 1877 began her 
present successful practice in one of the beautiful sub- 
urbs of Boston, where with her family she resides. 

Her associate, Dr. Betts, was born in 1846, at Vienna, 
Ohio. Studied in select schools, and with her father, 
who was a clergyman, till in 1868 she began the study of 
medicine "from pure love of it," as she says. By teach- 
ing and through her own efforts she finished a full course 
of study in college, graduated in 1872, and went into pri- 
vate practice in Youngstown, Ohio. But being anxious 
for hospital practice, in three years accepted a position as 
assistant in the hospital of which Dr. Eliza C. Judson 
was resident physician, and from thence came to Jamaica 
Plain, in 1878, where she now practices with success. 

"In 1856 the New England Medical College waa 
chartered by the Massachusetts Legislature, to be lo- 
cated in Boston. So far back as 1844 the subject of 
employing female attendants for women had engaged the 
attention of George Gregory ; and in 1848 his brother, 
Samuel Gregory, opened a medical school for women. 
The college has steadily progressed. Over fifty thou- 
sand dollars have been ])equeathed to it from different 
sources. Some remarkably proficient students have 
received the degree of M.D., among whom may be men- 



574 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

tioned Frances M. Cooke, professor of anatomy, and 
lecturer on physiology and hygiene, for the past nine 
} ears in the college ; also Anna Monroe, demonstra- 
tor of anatomy ; Dr. Haynes ; Dr. Morton, who spent 
four years in Paris, two in study and two in practice ; 
Dr. SewaIiL, now in London ; Dr. Avery, professor of 
physiology and hygiene in Vassar College ; Dr. Web- 
ster, of New Bedford ; and Mary H. Thompson, who 
graduated in 1863, and went to Chicago the same year, 
organized a woman's hospital, and displayed a deal of 
energy, tact, and good sense. 

" The New York Medical College for Women was 
chartered in 1863, since which time one hundred women 
have matriculated in it, and twenty-nine completed 
its course of study. Anna Inman, M.D., fills the 
chair of obstetrics; Mrs. C. S. Lozier, that of diseases 
of women and children, and is also dean of the college. 

" The Woman's Medical College of the New York 
Infirmary was chartered in 1865, and its first college 
session opened November, 1868. Having two such 
'^omen as Drs. Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell at 
its head, is sufficient prestige of its success. 

" Among other aids, it may be mentioned that the 
large Eclectic Medical College of Ohio was one of the 
first to welcome women as students. In Cleveland, 
the regular and homoeopathic have received them, as 
also the Chicago Medical School. In 1850 the Roch- 
ester Eclectic School opened its doors to women, and, 
when merged in the Syracuse school, continued to do 
so. In 1853 the Penn University was started in Phil- 
adelphia, with separate departments of instruction for 
men and women. It whs «liscontinued in 1864. 

" The New England Hospital for Women and Chil 



WOMEN PHYSICIANS. 575 

dren, which was organized in 1861, furnishes essential 
help to medical students. Dr. Marie E. Zakrzew- 
SKA is attending physician, and Dr. Horatio R. Storer 
attending surgeon. Over five thousand patients are 
annually treated, without regard to nationality or color, 
furnishing an almost infinite variety of diseases. 

" The New York Infirmary, under charge of the Drs. 
Blackwell, has since 1856 given relief to over forty 
thousand women and children. Over six thousand 
were recipients of its charity during the past year. 
More than thirty students have enjoyed its advantages, 
and twenty nurses have been trained and established in 
the city." 

Two physicians whose success I have had opportunity 
to notice, are Dr. Madana F. DeHart, wife of a lawyer 
of Jersey City, and the sister of that lawyer. Dr. Sarah 
DeHart. These ladies have shared one office for many 
years, and won universal respect as practitioners. 

The " Phrenological Journal " says : " Dr, Alicb 
Bennett is chief physician in the female department of 
the Norristown Insane Asylum ; Dr. Agnes Johnson, of 
Zanesville, Ohio, is assistant physician in the Athens 
(Ohio) Insane Asylum ; Dr. Margaret Cleves is the chief 
physician at the State Hospital for the Insane at Harris- 
burg, where Drs. Jane Carver and Anna Kugler are as- 
sistants ; and Dr. Emma Boon has lately been appointed 
as assistant to Dr. Richardson in the insane department 
of the Philadelphia Almshouse. 

Let the list of women physicians grow until there 
are enough for every city, town, and hamlet in our 
land ; remembering that to the female man as well as 
to the male may Cicero's words apply: " ffomines 
ad Deo8 nulld re propius accedunt, quam salutem homini- 
hui dando^ 

1 " M«n in no partxcular approach so nearly to the gods as by giviuji 
health »• sS'"^*'' <>iv-, -w^n." 




CHAPTER XVII. 



WOMEN AS EEADEKS, ACTORS, AND SINGERS. 

Charlotte Cusliman — Maggie Mitchell — Clara Louise Kellogg — 
Louise Woodworth Foss — Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie — S. Emma 
Covell — Anna Randall Diehl. 

"Her words have rung tliroughout the world, and thrilled the coldest heart, 
And bidden from the sternest eye the sudden tear-drop start. 

Oh! every lovely, lavish thing, that may to life belong, 

Is like the free, o'erflowing wealth of woman's gift of song." 

Maky M. Chase. 

"Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men." — Col. 



CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN, the singer, the actor, the 
reader! — for she was all these at different periods 
of her brilliant career, — admiration for the artist, and 
love for the woman, would place her name at the head 
of the chapter, even if it was not naturally the first 
suggested when one thinks of women on the stage ; for 
she ennobled the profession by her pure life and noble 
character and fine talent. She was born in Boston, 
July 23, 1816. She was of " Pilgrim " descent on both 

576 



WOMEN AS READERS, ACTORS, AND SINGERS. 577 

sides ; her ancestor, Robert Cushman, being one of the 
band of non-conformists in Holland, a part of whom 
came in " The Mayflower " to old Plymouth Rock. 
Tier ancestor came over in the succeeding vessel in 1621, 
in time to preach the first sermon in America ever 
printed. He little thought his descendant would make 
his name illustrious on the stage. Her father was a 
manufacturer of ship-bread, and was quite successful 
for many years. But reverses came : he died, and the 
property all passed into the hands of his partner. Char- 
lotte was but about twelve years of age ; but she was 
greatly distressed by the fact that the widow and five 
children should be left wholly destitute, even the 
household furniture being taken by the partner. She 
vowed then in her young heart that she would gain a 
support for her mother, that she would become richer 
than the partner ; and, as she herself stated to the writ- 
er, she did live to see the day when that partner came 
to her, and begged for help to save himself from bank- 
ruptcy, and she had the satisfaction of heaping coals of 
fire on his head by furnishing the required sum of 
money. She was his financial superior at last ; and he 
was doubtless ashamed of the part he had played in her 
early days. She began her public Hfe by singing at 
little exhibitions and concerts, and when quite young 
was a member of tlie choir in the School-street Church, 
vv^here Rev. Hosea Ballon was then preaching. She 
was baptized in infancy by Rev. Dr. Peabody of the 
Unitarian church. She was always liberal in her reli- 
gious views, and retained to the last a cheerful hope in 
God's great love for all his children. Very early in 
life she felt it her duty to aid her mother, and this filial 
love was always manifested. She cared for her tender- 
ly many long years, and was the strength and support 



578 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

of the whole family, aiding her brothers to profitable 
employment, and caring for her sister till there was no 
further need. Her sister, Susan Cushman, was an 
actress also, and played Juliet to Charlotte's Romeo. 
Her marriage with Dr. Muspratt of England led to her 
leaving the stage, as he was a chemist of wealth. By 
her first husband, Susan had one son, whom Charlotte 
adopted as her own, and to whom she left the bulk of 
her property, as a mother naturally would. Miss 
Cushman began first to sing in public ; but, her voice 
failing while in New Orleans, she was advised to go on 
the stage, and did so, appearing first in Lady Macbeth. 
" It was a bold first step, but it was successfully taken 
with a consciousness of her powers. From that first 
performance, doubtless greatly improved as she prose- 
cuted her art, she made the character her own ; and it 
has always remained one of her most distinctive 
parts." ^ 

On her return from New Orleans, Miss Cushman 
appeared at the Bowery Theatre in New York City.' 
But " her performances here, the proceeds of which 
were devoted to the support of her family, were inter- 
rupted by illness ; and, before her health was restored, 
the theatre was destroyed by fire, and with it all hei 
theatrical wardrobe was lost." 

Many were her discouragements. Dark hours came, 
when success almost seemed hopeless ; but she was 
undaunted. The force of her character was seen in 
her perseverance amid difficulties in those early days, 
as well as in her patient endurance of extreme suffer- 
ing in her last years. It was in 1837, while playing at 
the old National Theatre, that she appeared first as 
Meg Merrilies, a character which her impersonation has 

1 Portrait-Gallery of Eminent Men and Women 



WOMEN AS READERS, ACTORS, AND SINGERS. 579 

rendered immortal. She then played at the Park The- 
atre as leading actress ; and there it was in 1839 that 
she introduced her sister Susan to the stage. " In this 
first performance, in a play called ' The Genoese,' Char- 
lotte acted the lover Montaldo to her sister's Laura." 
She went to Philadelphia, and in 1844 appeared on the 
stage with Mr. Macready, who recognized her marvel- 
lous ability. Shortly after, having gained high position 
in her native land, she left with her sister for England, 
and was engaged at the Princess Theatre in February, 
1845, in the character of Bianca in " Fazio." After 
this came " Lady Macbeth, to which the highest praise 
was given by the London critics. Its merits were uni- 
versally conceded. The stage, said an able writer in 
' The Atheneum,' had long been waiting for a great 
actress, one capable of sustaining the gorgeous majesty 
of the Tragic Muse ; and the desideratum, he confessed, 
was supplied in the performance of Miss Cushman. 
Again, when a few weeks later she acted Beatrice, we 
are told by the same journal how she ' showed her 
usual decision and purpose in the assumption of the 
character-qualities in which at present she has not 
only no rival, but no competitor.' In Julia, in ' The 
Hunchback,' she won new laurels, especially in the 
more forcible passages, being pronounced ' the only 
actress who has at all approached the first represen- 
tative of the character. She also successfully acted 
Juliana, in ' The Honeymoon.' Her Portia was ad- 
mired, and her Meg Merrilies established as ' a perform- 
ance of fearful and picturesque energy, making a grand 
impression.' In the following season Miss Cushman 
played an engagement at Haymarket Theatre, in which 
she appeared as Romeo to her sister's Juliet. The lat- 
ter was admired for its beauty and delicacy ; and the 



580 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

former, while regarded as a bold venture, and in some 
degree as an exceptional performance, was described 
as ' one of the most extraordinary pieces of acting, 
perhaps, ever exhibited by a woman, — masculine in 
deportment, artistic in conception, complete in execu- 
tion, positive in its merits, both in parts and as a whole, 
and successful in its immediate impression.' Miss 
Cushman also appeared in this engagement as Ton, in 
Talfourd's Greek tragedy ; and as Viola, in ' Twelfth 
Night,' to her sister's Olivia, — in which they were both 
much admired. Charlotte's Meg Merrilies, again re- 
peatedly acted, became her most popular performance ; 
and it was noticed how, out of the meagre materials 
of the drama, she had by her skill and effective addi- 
tions of by-play created an historic whole, — a triumph 
of art." 

These successes were continued abroad. In 1849 
Miss Cushman again played in New York, and finally, 
after a brilliant series of performances at the principal 
theatres in America, closed with a farewell benefit at 
Broadway Theatre in New York, in May, 1852. She 
went back to England, but came again in 1857 to make 
another tour in the States, in the course of which she 
acted the part of Cardinal Wolsey, being probably the 
first woman who ever personated that character. 
Again she went to England, where she had a lovely 
home, and -where her sister and brother were estab- 
lished. But she came back to America, and played 
forty-eight consecutive nights in New York in 1860, 
reviving her powerful representation of Nancy Sykes 
after an interval of twenty years. She shortly after 
sailed for Europe, and her loyalty to the Union waa 
conspicuous there ; in 1863 she came back, and played 
in behalf of the Sanitary Commission, adding over 



WOMEN AS JBEADERS. ACTORS, AND SINaSRS. 581 

eight thousand dollars to that charitable national fund^ 
In 1871 she returned to America to die. Slie knew 
that her time was short, but the same invincible energy 
was manifest. The assistance of the queen's surgeon, 
Sir James Simpson, was enlisted to perform for her a 
surgical operatic-n, in the hope that her life might be 
prolonged ; but in vain. She had four years given to 
her as her lease of life by the eminent physician, if 
sire returned to her native air. She came, and lived 
nearly five, so great was her strength of constitution, 
80 powerful her indomitable will. She was not afraid 
to die ; but, like Alice Carey, she " longed so to live." 
They suffered similarly, the one with her pen in retire- 
ment, the other with her voice before the pubhc ; and 
the latter must have been the harder task, — a Spartan 
neroism, an heroic patience I Her farewell to the stage 
will not soon be forgotten ; and the picture of the 
great tragedienne receiving from the great and ven- 
erable poet a laurel crown, for her pure life and 
great genius, is a picture that will not soon fade from 
the memory of the thousands who beheld it, or the 
vast army of readers who delightedly perused the 
newspaper accounts of the deserved ovation. Then 
she gave herself mainly to reading ; and her motive 
was not purely mercenary, though she had the largest 
prices ever paid to any reader. She said to the 
writer that she hoped by herself reading she might 
bring up the profession of readers before the public, 
and thus help the large number of young girls who 
were desirous to read. She said also that she chose to 
read from the play of " Henry Eighth " because Queen 
Katherine was a reproof to all loose ideas concerning 
marriage ; and she wished to bear her testimony in 
favor of the sanctity of that relation, and the wicked 



582 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY, 

ness of unscriptiiral divorces. In all this she showed 
her true nobility of soul, and closed a stainless life 
with an act of high morality. 

In a beautiful villa not far from the sounding sea, at 
Newport, R.I., she spent the last few summers of her 
earthly life, in the loved society of her friend Emma 
Stebbins, and the family of her adopted son, faithfully 
attended by the colored servant Sallie Mercer, who had 
become more friend than servant in her thirty years 
and more of companionship with the woman whose 
greatness was as conspicuous in the home circle as on 
the boards, since it was the greatness of character as 
well as genius ; and from that summer retreat she came 
to her native city, where she died at the Parker House, 
and was buried from King's Chapel. Her remains now 
rest in the spot she herself chose at Mount Auburn, 
saying, " It commands a view of beloved Boston." 
One of her many friends,^ recently visiting Mount 
Auburn, wrote a poem from which these stansas are 
taken : — 

' ' I liuger long and lovingly 

Beside the spot where lies the form 
Of her who stood so grandly true 
Amid earth's sunshine or its storm. 

No granite pile or sculptured urn 

Speaks of her virtues or her fame ; 
But marble, stainless as her life, 

Bears nought save this — her honored name." 

Louise Woodworth Foss is justly regarded by the 
large majority of lyceum-committees and judges of good 
j-eadings as the best reader before the American public. 
She certainly has been the most successful in winning 

1 Elleu E. Miles. 




LOUISE WOOD WORTH FOSS. 



WOMEN AS KEADEKS, ACTORS, AND SINGERS. 585 

audiences again and again in the same cities ; and, for 
her rare combination of gifts which lead to success in 
her profession, is deservedly counted among the first 
woman elocutionists in the world. 

While Charlotte Cushman was before the public, all 
eyes turned to her, the well-deserved fame of the 
actress assisting in securing the fame of the reader ; 
but, now that she is gone, the public generally look to 
Mrs. Foss as the woman reader who satisfies both eye 
and ear in cultivated audiences, and evinces an intel- 
lectual comprehension of the author's meaning which 
is as rare as it is acceptable. 

Mrs. Foss is a native of Thetford, Vt. ; was educated 
at the somewhat celebrated Thetford Academy, and 
became a teacher. Subsequently she married, and, 
after a few years of home life, adopted the profession 
of an elocutionist, studying with Prof. Baxter of Har- 
vard College. 

She has now been before the pubKc for five successive 
seasons, her engagements extending through the prin- 
cipal cities of twenty-two States. 

Nothing better has ever been written of an elocution- 
ist than Mrs. Mary A. Livermore wrote of Mrs. Foss ; 
and place is given it here because it is a credit to its 
author's womanly sympathy and appreciation, as well 
as a deserved testimony to Mrs, Foss as a reader : — 

"'*Mrs. Foss will read in my parlors this evening, for 
the entertainment of a few friends : will you come and 
hear her ? ' 

"Such was the invitation of an old-time acquaint- 
ance, which I hastened to accept. For I had been one 
of Mrs. Foss's audience in Dorchester, two years before, 
%nd retained a pleasant memory of the evening's enter- 



586 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

tainment. Moreover, I knew that she was better worth 
hearing now than then ; and that she had been a hard 
student during these two intervening years, was ambi- 
tious of the highest excellence in her art, as well as of 
the largest success on the platform ; and all through 
the winter, in New England, I had heard lyceum-com- 
mittees mention her in terms of praise. 

" Other circumstances had given me an interest in 
the lady. Scattered here and there, in New England 
towns, I had stumbled on her former pupils, who 
always manifested a tender eagerness to know of her 
success ; speaking of her in a manner that was compli- 
mentary to her girlish patience and ability as a teacher. 
In occasional visits to her husband's studio, I had seen 
that she was his helper in emergencies, quite at home 
in the details of his art, ready to favor him with valu- 
able suggestions as to the pose of a sitter or the expres- 
sion of a picture. I knew also that she was an 
accomplished housewife, deft with the needle, and 
proud of her ability to work marvels with the sewing- 
machine. I had seen, ' with my own eyes,' achieve- 
ments of hers in the dressmaking and millinery line, 
which might lead many a fashionable modiste to break 
the Tenth Commandment in envy of her untaught native 
skill. And one evening, in the country, I had sur- 
prised her at an out-door game of romps with her little 
seven-year-old Eddie, who, fleet as the winged Mercury, 
had challenged his mother to a brief foot-race, in wliich 
he had won. As I witnessed their merry frolic, and 
the motherly love-scene in which it ended, my heart 
went out to both, and I recognized, in the aspiring 
artist, the true woman and tender mother. 

" So I was glad to see more of Mrs. Foss, and at an 
early hour sought the house of my fi-iend, whose bril 



WOMEN AS READERS, ACTORS, AND SINGERS. 587 

liantly lighted parlors I found well filled by a care- 
fully selected, but somewhat cold and critical audience. 
Four clergymen of different sects were of the party, the 
entire force of one of the lecture-bureaus, several 
prominent musical people, a teacher of elocution, and 
members of three lyceum-committees, who had accepted 
my friend's invitation, as she had given it, ' with an eye 
to business.' Mrs. Foss was a stranger to all, only 
three or four present having seen her. To read well to 
that calm, cold, prejudging assembly of less than a 
hundred people, was a more dijfficult thing than to read 
well to a miscellaneous assemblage filling Tremont 
Temple. 

" The decorous buzz of subdued conversation ceased 
as the lady reader entered, escorted by her handsome 
husband, who is as proud of as ambitious for his gifted 
wife. A young woman stood before us, fresh, winsome, 
bright, and cheery, showing perfect health in her bril- 
liant complexion and well-rounded figure, who bowed 
to us gracefully, and greeted us with so pleasant a smile 
as to bespeak immediately the good-will of everybody. 
Her figure was fine and commanding, her dress stylish 
and becoming, and her manner dignified, perfectly self- 
possessed, and free from superficiality. She began to 
read : her educated voice was music in its every tone. 
Clear as a silver bell, resonant and flexible, it is capable 
of expressing every grade of passion and emotion 
known to humanity. 

" She gave us Longfellow's ' Sandalphon, the Angel 
of Prayer;' and our hearts throbbed responsive to the 
beseeching, imploring petitions of those who, ' burdened 
with crosses,' pour out their plaints to heaven. She 
recited ' The Charcoal Man ; ' and we heard the oft- 
repeated echoes of the distant hills, as they gave back 



588 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

the cry of the charcoal-vender, and the mimicries of 
mischievous urchins in far, far, away streets. She read 
' La Cica ; ' and, lo 1 the voluptuous and wily Italian 
countess was before us, with her languid air, her co- 
quettish glances, her softly-spoken, Italianized English, 
while her companion, the Hoosier senator, lined out 
to her, with Western accent, a quotation from Isaac 
Watts, his ' favorite English poet.' Then followed 
' Gone with a Handsomer Man ; ' and we wept over the 
desolation of the seemingly deserted young husband, 
who smothered the curses that leaped to his lips, and 
blessed his faithless but still beloved wife instead ; 
and when the joking wife returned, in company with 
her father, who proved to be her ' handsomer man,' we 
all caught the contagion of John's hearty laughter, as 
glad to have the joke end thus happily as was the 
benumbed but now beatified John. 

" How we all broke down over the death-scene of 
poor ' Jo,' as depicted in the ' Bleak House 1 ' the thin, 
husky voice begging piteously, in the darkness of 
coming death, for the ' light ' which was ' so slow in 
coming,' and then halting forever midway in prayer, 
as the light of the great hereafter burst on his aston- 
ished vision, dispelling for him the fogs and mists and 
chilling vapors of earth which had always enshrouded 
it. She recited ' CharHe Machree ; ' and by this time we 
had forgotten to criticise, and had yielded ourselves to 
the enjoyment of the occasion, expressing our satisfac- 
tion in a perfect abandon of applause. We held our 
breath at the artistic rendering of the dramatic little 
poem, which showed us the stalwart Charlie battling 
with the swift-flowing river, across which his vain 
Scotch sweet-heart had dared him to swim. He began 
to sink ; and our hearts stood still at her frozen horror. 



WOMEN AS READERS, ACTORS, AKD SINGERS. 589 

She shrieked for ♦ help I ' and we rose half way from 
our seats in our desire to go to aid her. Leaning over 
the river's brink with widely extended arms, she en- 
couraged, and tenderly exhorted, and bravely assured 
him, till his hand grasped hers, and he was saved. 
And the little parlor audience went wild with acclama- 
tion as the fair reader gave us a picture of the Scotch 
laddie fainting on the bank, now held to the heart 
of his overjoyed lassie, who turned to weep aloud 
with penitence at the peril she had enticed him to run, 
and gladness for his salvation. 

" And then came a reading from the ' Midsummer 
Night's Dream,' with another from ' Macbeth,' sand- 
wiched between selections from Mark Twain's ' Inno- 
cents Abroad,' and Mrs. Stowe's ' Old town Stories.' 

" Our programme was long and varied. For the 
audience soon took that matter into their hands, calling 
out for what they wanted, Uke diners at a caf6; so 
that we were treated in generous measure to a perfect 
olla podrida of comedy, tragedy, narrative, dialogue, 
and parody. 

" Nobody seemed to remember that Mrs. Foss might 
be wearied, until it was well on to midnight. And 
then her audience crowded about her, the ice of the 
early evening all thawed away, to offer hearty con- 
gratulations and eloquent thanks, while the members of 
the three lyceum-committees lingered a little to engage 
ner for their next winter's course of entertainments. 

" Later in the season I was present at a public read- 
ing given by Mrs. Foss in Boston. It was for the benefit 
of some charity, and the hall was located in a densely 
peopled neighborhood. As the evening was warm, the 
windows of the hall were flung wide open, and whole 
famihes of the humble people in the immediate vicinity 



590 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

swarmed into the back yards, or sought the coolness of 
the hour from open windows or outer doorsteps. The 
programme included ' Charlie Machree,' which Mrs. 
Foss gave with great dramatic effect. As she repeated 
the appealing cry, ' Help, help I or he'll die 1 ' uttered 
by the Scotch lassie who sees her lover sink in the 
black water, she put into it so much of real agony and 
mortal terror, that it startled the smoking, gossiping 
crowds below. Straightway there went up from their 
midst such shouts of, '■Murder! murder! that's a 
woman'' s voice ! help ! police ! ' that two of the watchful 
city guardians rushed up the stairway, three steps at a 
bound, and, clubs in hand, stood before us, ready to 
arrest the supposed violator of the law. 

" Mrs. Foss has youth, health, and talent ; and, with 
the laudable ambition which now moves her, the world 
will yet hear more of her. As it is, she is already well 
known to the public, which has accorded her no small 
meed of praise, and of more substantial recompense." 

Maggie Mitchell, by marriage named now Mrs. 
Paddock, is among the favorites of the theatre-going 
American people. She has a peculiar aptitude for 
the representation of childhood's ways, and in her 
inimitable personations of " Little Barefoot " and 
"Fanchon" has won deserved praise. Her "Pearl of 
Savoy " is also excellent, but her forte lies in her great 
ability to present childish ways. She is said to be a 
woman of great moral worth, and richly to deserve the 
pecuniary success she has achieved. 

FAMfY Davenport and Oijte Logan and Kate 
Field are well known as good actors. The two last 
mentioned have used their pens to some purpose. The 
last has just commenced a successful career in England 



WOMEN AS READERS, ACTORS, AND SINGERS. 591 

and Olive Logan has forsaken the stage since hei 
marriage to Mr. Wirt Sikes, and advises young girls to 
keep clear of the stage. This was also Miss Cushman's 
advice. She said she had never encouraged any one 
to adopt the stage as a profession, and she never 
consciously had a pupil, though she was doubtless a 
teacher by bright example all her life. 

Fanny Foster is among the acceptable actresses of 
later days, and most recently Mrs. Pomeroy, whose 
stage name may be something different. A limited 
acquaintance with the stage, and a desire to make this 
chapter brief as possible, leads to a becoming brevity 
in regard to actresses. That purity of life and mod- 
esty of deportment may be consistent with stage life, 
Charlotte Cushman has shown us ; but her own words 
deter one from encouraging very greatly the young 
woman who can work in any other department from 
adopting this profession. Hence many regret that 
Anna Dickinson has stepped from the high place she 
occupied as a lecturer, to any place upon the boards. 
She may, however, ennoble the stage as Miss Cushman 
did, and help those who act with her to noble aims and 
true living. It is certainly an honest and honorable 
employment " to hold the mirror up to nature ; " and, 
if the actor's private character is above reproach, the 
player, no less than the writer or the beholder of the 
play, is entitled to respectful consideration. 

Among the singers of our century, and they are 
many, may be specially mentioned Clara Louise 
Kellogg, Emma Abbott, Miss Thursby, Annie 
GtJiLFORD, Annie Louise Gary, Julb De Ryther, 
and the Hutchinson ladies, Elizabeth, Viola, and 
Abby. The latter have already been mentioned among 
the reformers, for they have done admirable service 



592 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

by singing the songs of freedom and reform at temper- 
perance meetings and the like. Among musical artists 
should be mentioned Prof. Charlotte V. Winteb- 
BURN, who has successfully taught music in the Nor- 
mal College of New York. 

Clara Louise Kellogg is of New England de- 
scent, but was bom during a temporary sojourn of her 
parents at the South. Her musical ear has always 
been of the finest. Her voice is a mezzo-soprano of 
great range and sweetness. " When but nine months 
old, and yet in arms, she essayed to sing a tune that 
pleased her baby fancy ; and accomplishing the first 
part, but failing to turn it correctly, she stopped, and 
was not heard to attempt it again tUl just before the 
completion of the year, when she broke out in a tri- 
umph, and sang the whole air through. . . . She comes 
of quite a peculiar family : her father is an inventor of 
no small merit, though sharing the ill fortune of most 
inventors, and seeing other people acquire wealth by 
the labors of his own brain ; one of her grandparents 
was famous for his mathematical attainments ; and a 
grandmother, still living, is an excellent violinist, and 
used formerly, in the beginning of the cotton manufac- 
ture, to superintend the erection in large mills of a very 
valuable invention of her own ; and thus may be seen 
another argument in favor of that idea that music is 
the subUmation and idealism of mathematics. Miss 
Kellogg's mother is certainly one of the most notable 
women in the country, still young, good, kind, and 
wise ; she sings a little, plays a little, paints a little, 
models a little, and does all well. She attended per- 
sonally to the education of Louise, was her instructor 
in much, has been her constant confidante, companion 
and manager, designs all her costumes, superintends 



WOMEN AS BEADERS, ACTORS, AND SINGERS. 593 

her dressing, stands always ready behind the scenes 
with a wrap ready to fold around her as she leaves the 
stage, — having never yet seen her from the front, — 
and shielding her always as carefully as a daughter 
could be shielded in a mother's drawing-room ; a 
daughter, in this case, well repaying the care by 
affection, uprightness, and rare intelligence." 

Among the young elocutionists is named with pleas- 
ure S. Emma Cowell of New York City, who has 
read with great acceptance in several cities. She has 
also an aptness to teach, which has already been enjoyed 
by ladies of high social position. With rare dramatic 
powers, a fine, flexible voice, which she well knows 
how to modulate, and with an artist's comprehension 
of the pieces she reads, IVIiss Cowell bids fair to win 
many laurels. She is now studying the classics in a 
Maine seminary, and preparing herself for great use- 
fulness in the future. 

Anna Randall Diehl is a fine teacher of elocu- 
tion, and has prepared several volumes which may 
greatly assist students. She is editing also a quarterly 
for elocutionists, which has been found very useful. 

She resides in New York City, but has taught in 
various parts of the Union. Mrs. Foss should have 
been mentioned also as a teacher of her art, who has 
been very successful in instructing teachers in the 
public schools, as Mrs. Diehl has also done. 

MLartha E. Powers is a teacher of elocution in 
New York City, and Laura M. Bronson, and the wife 
of Prof. W. C Lyman also. The wife of Prof. George 
VandenhofF is likewise a teacher there ; and, if the 
rising generation do not learn to read and speak well, 
it will not be for lack of good teachers, among whom 
may surely be mentioned Ellen E. Miles, now in 



594 WOMEN OF THE CBNTUBY. 

Jersey City. Miss Powers is indorsed by the great, 
sweet Quaker poet, in these words : — 

Ameseitrt, 11th Mo., 30th, 1874. 
I have had the pleasure of hearing readings by Martha E. 
Powers, and can freely recommend her to all who need the serviceB 
of a thoroughly trained and competent teacher of elocution. She 
possesses all the requisites of a good reader, in her voice, manner, 
and ability to render the most delicate shades of meaning. I 
have no doubt of her giving entire satisfaction to her pupils. 

John 6. Whittiek 

Helen Potteb has won a high place among public 
readers by her impersonations. Salue Joy White, 
a wide-awake reporter of this century, says of her in 
" The Boston Sunday Times," " A native of a little 
village in New York, taught in the district school, and 
fond of poetry, the first good reading she ever heard 
was at the age of twelve years, a few sentences only, 
from the county superintendent. While yet in her 
teens she went South as a teacher, and returned to 
spend some time with a cultivated family of relatives 
in Michigan. She went to New York, and studied with 
the Vandenhofifs ; but, not fully satisfied with their 
methods, she came to Boston, and studied with Prof. 
Leonard. After this she was a teacher of elocution 
four years in a seminary for young ladies, near Oswego, 
when she was elected to fill Mrs. Vandenhoffs place at 
Packer's Institute, Brooklyn. After two years she left 
that situation, and devoted herself partially to litera- 
ture and normal work ; being employed by the States 
of New York and Vermont as a teacher of teachers. 
Miss Potter, by invitation, read a paper before the First 
Woman's Congress, held in New York in 1873, on In- 
dustrial Art ; a subject on which she has since lectured 
to large audiences from Portland to San Francisco." 



WOMEN AS READERS, ACTORS, AND SINGERS. 595 

Miss Potter read in Jersey City in 1875, and "The 
Evening Journal " thus referred to her and her readings: 
" Miss Potter's appearance upon the rostrum is impos- 
ing yet not obtrusive. She dresses with great taste, in 
dark colors, and in plain but elegant style. Her face is 
mobile, and capable of fashioning itself into a hundred 
varieties of expression ; but her voice is the grand fea- 
ture. Its tones are graduated between the highest note 
of contralto and the deeper tones of a baritone ; and 
Miss Potter is thus enabled to read any sort of selec- 
tion whatever, so far as voice is concerned. As to her 
ability to read correctly, there is no doubt whatever ; so 
that taking these three important elements, mobihty of 
feature, flexibility and range of voice, and the power to 
correctly employ both, we have an artist in the true sense 
3f the term. ... A decided feature was Miss Potter's 
imitation of a reading-class of twenty-five persons. 
How she possessed herself of the styles of so many 
youngsters, their peculiar looks, actions, &c., and was 
enabled to delineate them so exquisitely, is to be won- 
dered at. It was as if one were looking at and Hstening 
to a class, for a complete difference was exhibited by 
Miss Potter in each personation. ' The Death of the 
Old Squire ' — a rare old piece — was very finely read. 
The entertainment closed with personations of Mrs. 
Scott Siddons, Miss Anna Dickinson, Miss Olive Logan, 
and John B. Gough. Each character was given with 
complete change of dress and ' make-up ; ' and, under 
Miss Potter's power, the people she represented ap- 
peared to live before the audience. Peculiar style of 
delivery, of dress, of motion, of manner, of voice, of 
pronunciation, of gesture, of walk, were all so faithfully 
portrayed that one absolutely lost sight at times of the 
tact that the thing was only an imitation. The audi- 
ence was deh'ghted, and showed it." 



596 "WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

It should not be forgotten that the well-known Mother 
Goose's Melodies were first printed in Boston, Mass. 
They were collected by Thomas Fleet, from the lips of 
his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Foster, daughter of William 
and Ellen Foster, of Charlestown, Mass., who married 
Isaac Goose, of Boston, and sang these lullabies, partly 
learned from her mother and partly original, to her six 
children in the hearing, perhaps, of her ten step-children, 
and sang them to her gi-andson, till his father collected 
chem, in 1719, and long afterwards she sang them to 
other grandchildren, and their music has gone on to the 
present century, and will not cease while babies need to 
be amused or soothed. 

This chapter may close with a brief reference to two 
singers ; one — the half-niece of Charlotte Cushman — 
Ellen M. Caet weight, and the other Addie Ryan 
CooLLDGE. Both were women best enjoyed as they 
lifted their voices in the sanctuary, and really assisted 
the congregation to worship God. 

Mrs. Cartwright was the only daughter of James 
Weld and Eleanor Cushman, half-sister of the great 
tragedienne. She was bom in Boston, July 27, 1815, 
and was a student at the Charlestown Convent at the 
time it was destroyed by a mob. Her musical ability 
was very great. She sang at concerts, and was a mem- 
ber of the best musical clubs in Boston ; but an early 
maiTiage, and a family of twelve children (eleven of 
whom survive), prevented a public career, for which she 
had the genius and the taste. She spent the latter por- 
tion of her life, some twenty years or so, on the island 
of Nantucket, where she was organist and chorister of 
the Methodist church, and displayed the musical genius 
which belonged to the Cushman family. She had much 
of the dramatic ability also, which, being repressed by 
aer family cares and religious connections, was shown 



WOMEN AS READERS, ACTORS, AND SINGERS. 597 

In aptitude for arranging tableaux and conducting ex- 
hibitions. Of a lovely person and character, she was 
attractive to a large circle. Her sudden death, of 
pneumonia, in Boston Highlands, April 26, 1873, was a 
grief to many far and near. Her funeral was attended 
from the Methodist Church, where she was an inde- 
fatigable worker, two clergymen conducting the im- 
pressive services, the pulpit, altar, and casket being 
beautifully decked with the flowers she so dearly loved, 
and the church crowded with sincere mourners. She 
still lives in the hearts of those who knew her worth ; 
and it is one of the sweet anticipations of the writer, 
that heaven will one day give back to her dear "Mother 
Ellen." 

The other gifted singer was the leading singer in the 
Church of the Unity, Boston, where she suddenly died. 
" Previous to the removal of the remains from the 
residence of Mr. Coolidge in Hotel Dearborn, Boston 
Highlands, the Episcopal service for the burial of the 
dead was read by Rev. J. T. Coolidge, father-in-law of 
the deceased. The casket of rosewood was placed in 
front of the altar, and surrounded with elegant floral 
offerings. The surviving members of the choir of the 
Church of the Unity, of which she was a member, be- 
stowed a large and elegant cross, which was placed in 
front of the pastor's desk. A splendid crown, a lyre, 
and several beautiful wreaths, were added to these 
t«>kens of love and esteem. The services commenced 
with the singing of the hymn beginning, ' I cannot 
always trace the way,' by Howard M. Dow. The Rev. 
Mr. v*^avage then read appropriate selections from Scrip- 
ture, at the close of which he read an original poem, 
composed by himself for the occasion. It is as fol- 
lows : — 



598 



WOMEN OP THE CENTUBY. 

*When falls the night upon the earth, 

\nd all in shadow lies, 
The sun's not dead : his radiance still 
Beams bright on other skies. 

/ind when the morning star fades out 

On the pale brow of dawn, 
Though lost a while to our eyes. 

It still keeps shining on. 

Some other world is glad to see 
Our light that's gone away ; 

The light woose going makes our night 
Makes somewhere else a day. 

The feet that cease their walking here, 
Grown weary of earth's road, 

With tireless strength go travelling 
The pathway up to God. 

The hands whose patient fingers now 

Have laid earth's labors by, 
With loving skill have taken up 

Some higher ministry. 

The eyes, that give no longer back 

The tender look of love. 
Now, with a deathless gleam, drink in 

God's beauteous world above. 

The lips whose sweet tones made us ask 

If angels sweeter sung, 
Though silent here, make heaven glad 

With their melodious tongue. 

And, though her body lies asleep, 

Our favorite is not dead : 
She rises from dark death's bright birth 
" With joy upon her head." 



WOMEN AS READERS, ACTORS, AND SINGERB. 599 

And she is joBt our loved one stiil, 

And loves us now no less '. 
She goes away to come again, 

To watch us and to bless. 

And though we cannot clasp her hand 

Nor look upon her face, 
Nor listen to her voice again, 

Nor watch her ways of grace, — 

Still we can keep her memory bright, 

And walk the way she trod, 
And know she waits until we come 

Up to the house of God. 

Let us be thankful through our tears 

That she was ours so long, 
And try to lift our tones of grief 

To accord with her heaven-song.' 

" After reading these verses, Mr. Savage addressed 
the congregation ; in the course of his remarks saying 
he believed that this universal appointment of death was 
just as lovely and as sweet as this life, and that it was* 
but a birth into a higher happier and sphere of existence. 
What we call death is to this one a double immortality. 
They all knew that she had contributed of the finest 
and noblest qualities of her nature to make them what 
they are. Her life had entered into theirs. So she who 
had passed away would find an immortality of sweet- 
ness and tender memory in their hearts. She has risen 
and gone into a life as true, as high, as noble, as any 
we can conceive ; and she is to-day the same loving 
friend that she was the last time we looked into hsr 



Her remains were taken to Forest Hills Cemetery, 
where also the remains of the other dear and noble 



600 WOMBJS OF TtLK CENTURY. 

singer repose ; but the spirits of both are with God, for 
did not Jesus say, " Where I am, there shall also my 
servant be " ? 

Let the name of Miss Ann Aubertine Woodward 
(Auber Forestier) close this chapter. She has trans- 
lated from the Norwegian admirable prose and verse, and 
with Professor Anderson, has helped greatly to intro- 
duce the music of the native land of Ole Bull, by her 
" Norway Music Album." She is the author of " Echoes 
from Mist-Land," and writes very acceptably for various 
periodicals. She resides at Wisconsin University in the 
4u)me of Professor Anderson. 




CHAPTER XVIIL 

WOMEN IN BUSINESS. 

Rebecca Motte — Susanna Wright — Emily Ruggles — Susan King — 
Women as Retail Traders — Sewing- Women — Women in Post- 
OfRces — Women as Telegraphers — Women in Light-houses — 
Women Clerks — The Army of Workers in Homes, Stores, and 
Factories. 

" Not then will woman Idly rest, a pretty household dove, 
When fit to be the eagle's mate, and cleave the clouds above ; 
But strive with him in noblest work, and with him win at last, 
"When all the struggle, all the toil and weariness, are past." 

Mary M. Chase. 

" She perceiveth that her merchandise is good. She maketh fine linen, and 
selleth it." —Pro V. xxx. 18, 24. 

THAT woman has always been busy, no one can 
deny, and busy to good purpose also ; but that 
women have been and are " in business," according 
to the technical or mercantile sense of that phrase, 
many may not know. Yet it is true ; and the business 
capacity of woman is undeniable. From the days of 

601 



602 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Abigail, the wife of Naboth, there have been shrewdy 
sensible women, many of whom have known how to 
labor with industry, and secure a sufficient reward for 
their toil, even if they had not much tact or skill 
outside of their peculiar trade or employment. Oui 
foremothei-8 were not remiss in business capacity, if we 
may remember Rebecca Motte, who in the first of 
our century, after the struggle for independence was 
over, met all demands against her husband's estate by 
purchasing a large tract of rice-land on credit ; and by 
industry and economy paid all demands, and accumu- 
lated a handsome property. The question is pertinently 
asked nowadays by the press, " Do people remember 
that it was a woman — Priscilla Wakefield — who 
founded the first savings bank ? " Says the " Boston 
Journal : " — 

" The progress of the last hundred years, while 
necessarily including much that is common to both 
sexes, has been so marked in its relations to woman as 
to stand out distinctly. One feature of it, which may 
seem very prosaic, is that which comes under the head 
of political economy, — the vastly increased number of 
women who are earning their own living. The signifi- 
cant part of it is, that they have made this advance 
for themselves, and that men have not made it for 
them. The old accepted phrase that woman is main- 
tained by father, or husband, or brother, however 
agreeable, was never only partially true ; and even 
where it was so it was not always to the advantage 
of woman. The opening of facilities for self-support, 
caused by the progress of modern industry, has wrought 
a great change. Twenty years ago, of six millions of 
women above twenty years of age, in England and 



WOMEN IN BUSINESS. 603 

Scotland, it was found that three millions, or one-half 
of the whole number, were special in the industries, 
and were independent supporters ; and some writers 
expressed the opinion that there were not fifty thousand 
in England who were not in some manner industrial 
and self-sustaining. There are no census returns in 
this country to give a similar class of facts ; but here 
in Massachusetts, at least, there is no doubt the i)rog- 
ress is greatly in advance of these English statistics. 
Woman is now seen and welcomed in nearly every 
department of labor and effort. The last fifty years 
have seen old barriers broken down which can never 
be restored, new avenues opened which can never be 
closed, over which her advancing step has not been so 
much the movement of her design, as it has been the 
fulfilment of her destiny. This hand of social reform 
has been gentle but resistless. 

" Nor has this great change in the social condition 
been effected without corresponding change in the 
civil rights of women. Here, too, Massachusetts may 
be accepted as a type of the general progress in the 
United States. By successive stages in the legislation, 
commencing almost immediately after the adoption of 
;he State Constitution in 1780, followed up from inter- 
val to interval, and culminating in the sweeping law 
of 1874, the whole force of these inequalities has yielded 
before the paramount equities of the situation ; and 
to-day the personality, the independence, of woman, 
in civil rights under the law, stands out the crowning 
achievement of this Commonwealth. 'If,\say8 Gov. 
Bullock, ' the making of the laws had been in her own 
hands, I do not believe that they could be more benefi- 
cent.' Of like nature has been the change of woman's 
relation to marriage. The immunity of the sex as to 



604 WOMEN OF THE OENTUBY. 

person and property, their right to release from oppres- 
sion practised under the certificate of a wedding, their 
opportunities of return to their own industry, their 
own affections, and their own religion, are advanced 
to a degree which suits their moral and social neces- 
sities ; which accords with a civilization built up on 
the overthrow of ecclesiastical dogmatism and super- 
stition, too long received under the name of conserva- 
tism." 

With these changes have come rare opportunities for 
entering upon business pursuits, and gaining enviable 
prosperity ; and women have gladly entered these open 
doors. A New York paper says, — 

"• Some curious facts relative to various businesses 
carried on in New York City by women are made 
known in the latest directory published at the me- 
tropolis. 

" The proportion of men to women in business where 
the women stand as their own representatives is 4,479 
women to 37,203 men. 

" It is somewhat surprising to find a few women ia 
employments supposed to be entirely monopolized by 
and only fitted for men : as, for example, out of 79 bil- 
liard-saloons, two are kept by women ; and, out of 2,888 
lager-beer saloons, the proprietors of 51 are women. 
There is one female blacksmith in a list of 118, and 20 
'ady butchers in the whole number of 2013. 

" There is also in the list of 588 names one woman 
druggist ; which is particularly worthy of mention, 
because a druggist must have a diploma from a phar- 
maceutical college, which have only just (in rare 
instances) begun to admit them, and must also hava 



WOMEN EN BUSECfESS. 605 

served practically in a drug-store three or four years. 
There is one woman stationer and bookseller, and 62 
woman doctors among 1,633 physicians ; and, as apropos 
'n this connection, it may be stated that out of 152 
undertakers two are women. Only one woman wood- 
engraver is given among 79 males ; but there are two 
women who are down at the head of exchange-offices, 
three who are pawnbrokers, and five who are keepers 
of livery-stables." 

In the early days of our nation there was a woman, 
then aged, whose life was an example of industry. 
Susanna Wright was her honored name. We are 
told that " she never married, but, after the death of 
her father, became the head of her own family, who 
looked up to her for advice and direction as a parent ; 
for her heart was replete with every kind affection." 
And it is said also, "she was a remarkable economist 
of time ; for although she had the constant management 
of a large family, and at times of a profitable establish- 
ment, she mastered many of the sciences, was a good 
French, Latin, and Italian scholar, assisted neighbors 
in the settlement of estates, and was frequently con- 
sulted as a physician. She took great delight in 
domestic manufacture, and had constantly much of it 
produced in her family. For many years she attended 
ko the rearing of silkworms, and with the sUk, which 
she reeled and prepared herself, made many articles 
both of beauty and utility, dying the silk of various 
colors with indigenous materials. She had at one time 
upwards of sixty yards of excellent mantua returned to 
her from Great Britain, where she had sent the raw 
silk to be manufactured." She was a Quakeress, and 
lived more than fourscore vears. 



€06 WOMEN OF THE OBNTUBY. 

Women since her day have been engaged in busineaa 
80 that Mrs. Dall could say, " At the close of the Revo- 
lution, there were in New England, and perhaps farther 
south, many women conducting large business estab- 
lishments, and few females employed as clerks, partly 
because we were still English, and had not lost English 
habits. Men went to the war or to general court ; and 
their wives soon learned to carry on the business upon 
which not only the family bread, but the fate of the 
nation, depended, while our common schools had not 
yet begun to fit women for book-keepers and clerks. 

The island of Nantucket was, at the close of the war, 
a good example of the whole country. Great destitu- 
tion existed on the establishment of peace. The men 
began the whale-fishery with redoubled energy ; some 
fitted out and others manned the ships, while the women 
laid aside distajBf and loom to attend to trade. A very 
interesting letter from Mrs. Eliza Barney to Mr. Hig- 
ginson gives me many particulars : " Fifty years ago," 
she says, " aU the dry goods and groceries were kept 
by women, who went to Boston semi-annually to renew 
their stock. The heroine of ' Miriam Ccffin ' ^ was one 
of the most influential of our commercial women. She 
not only traded in dry goods and provisions, but fitted 
vessels for the merchant service. Since that time I can 
recall near seventy women who have successfully en- 
gaged in commerce, brought up and educated large 
families, and retired with a competence. It was the 
influence of capitalists from the continent that drove 
Nantucket women out of the trade ; and they only 
resumed it a few years since, when the California emi- 
gration made it necessary. Five dry-goods and a few 
large groceries are now carried on by women, as also 

' A novel of great lf>ca] luterest, ami recently republished 



WOMEN IN BUSINESS. 607 

one druggist-shop." ^ The names of Bv)me of those 
early shopkeepers were once familiar to the writer, and 
their stores were very attractive. Rachel Easton, 
Abby Betts, Ltdia Hosier, Nanoy Hussey, those 
names chime with the memories of childhood very pleas- 
antly. Since then the dear old island has had many 
other women storekeepers, — Susan A. Rand (since 
physician), Hannah Fosdick (a faithful abolitionist), 
Lydia Elkins, Habbibt Macy, Sophia A. Ray (a 
mother in Israel), Eunice Paddock, Mary F. Cole- 
man, Sarah and Mary P. Swain, and others whose 
names do not readily present themselves, but all wor- 
thy business women of the century. 

Mrs. Dall says, " In Pennsylvania the Quaker view 
of the duties and rights of women contributed to throw 
many into trade. One lady in Philadelphia transferred 
a large wholesale business to two nephews, and died 
wealthy. I saw a letter the other day, which gave aD 
interesting account of two girls who got permissioD 
there to sell a little stock in their father's shop. One 
began with sixty-two cents, which she invested in a 
dozen tapes ; the other had three dollars. In a few 
years they bought their father out. The little tape 
seller married, and earned her husband eight thousand 
dollars ; while the single sister kept on until she had 
accumulated twenty thousand dollars, and took a poor 
boy into partnership. . . . Mrs. Barney tells us that 
failures were very uncommon in Nantucket while 
women managed the business ; and some of the largest 
and safest fortunes in Boston were furnished by women. 
... It was one of the most distinguished of our 
female merchants — Martha Buckminster Curtis — who 
planted, in Framingham, the first potatoes ever set in 

1 The College, the Market,, and the Coan, pabllshed ic i><67. 



608 WOMEN OF THB CENTURY. 

New England. . . . Ann Bent entered on her businotiii 
career so long ago as 1784, at the age of sixteen. She 
first entered a crockery-ware and dry-goods firm." 

Mrs. Dall gives several very interesting pages of 
statistics concerning the various manufactures in which 
women are engaged. As, for want of leisure, the late 
census has not been examined, the latest statistics 
cannot here be given. It is hoped some other woman 
will take the hint, and give her readers a full account. 

Women can engage successfully in the dry-goods 
business. One example is here given as falling under 
the writer's personal observation : — 

Emily Ruggles of Reading, Mass., bom in Dor- 
chester, July 16, 1827, has been emphatically a woman 
of business. For twenty-one years she has conducted 
a dry-goods store, buying her goods as well as selling 
them, keeping her own books, directing her assistants, 
and winning the deserved respect of the community 
for her integrity and fair dealing, and without once 
suspending or becoming involved. On the contrary, 
she has proved herself a successful merchant, and has 
more recently engaged in the real estate business, pur- 
chasing land for individuals and corporations. She 
secured the land on which the Christian Union Church 
now stands, in a business-like manner which would 
have challenged the admiration of any honorable real- 
estate agent, and refused to take advantage of circum- 
stances in the transaction that might have put money 
in her pocket instead of saving the treasury of the 
church. She is now owner of a tract of land near 
Lake Quannapowitt, and has laid out streets, and 
arranged building-lots, showing that a woman's specu- 
lations in real estate, or rather a woman's foresight 
and business capacity, are equal to emergencies, and 



WOMEN IS BUSINESS. 609 

worthy of success. Miss Ruggles is a descendant from 
Peregrine White (the first child bom among the Pil- 
grims) on her mother's side ; and on her father's is a 
relative of the family of Tafts, as well as Ruggles. 
Her father was a cabinet-manufactnrer for many years 
(he made the coffin in which Pres. John Adams was 
buried, and helped place the body in it) ; and the 
daughter inherits his mechanical ability to a large 
degree. During the war Miss Ruggles was actively 
engaged in the Sanitary Commission home work, and 
was the agent of the Commission in her town. She has 
always felt a deep interest in the reforms of the day, 
was one of the earliest women in Massachusetts elected 
to the office of school committee, and is a shining ex- 
ample of the fact that women who have business capa- 
city do not need to beg or starve, and can gain the 
approval of all intelligent lovers of humanity by the 
straightforward course which integrity and honesty 
prompt. Judge Alphonso Taft, her relative (late 
Secretary of War, and now Attorney- General), in 
writing to her concerning a genealogical record of their 
family, said, " I admire your perseverance in business. 
I think you must be one of those women who 
believe in women sharing in the responsibilities of 
business, and even in those of political life, and ia 
enlarging the sphere of woman's activity. If so, I 
agree with you. I am for the enlargement and exten- 
sion of women's legal and political power. I would 
have them share in the elective franchise. My wife 
and I concur in these gential views. It may be that 
you have not got so far along ; but your carrying on a 
mercantile business for so long a time looks favorable." 
Mention might be made of Columbia Lane and her 
three sisters, who have been successful in the millin- 



610 'WOMEN OF THE CENTDBT. 

ery and fancy-goods business for many years in Maine 
and in Beverly, Mass. Other women in the same town 
where they have conducted business have also been 
thus engaged, some of them having been apprentices or 
helpers in their stores, learning from these women of 
integrty the methods of conducting business honorably 
and successfully. 

Charlotte L. Newton of Cambridgeport, Mass., 
was four years an official of the Boston Custom House, 
and was also a successful dry-goods clerk, and real- 
estate dealer for some time. 

Mrs. Peasely of Winona, Minn., is engaged in the 
Aovel work of cutting gravestones. " She works in a 
marble-shop, with a number of men ; takes the stone in 
the rough as they do, works as much as they, and earns 
'^hree doUars a day. Why does she do it? Because 
rt nen her husband died she was not able to buy a head- 
stone complete, but bought a marble slab in the rough, 
and finished it; and it can be seen standing at the 
head of his grave, near the village of Henderson, Minn. 
She then carved some work, and took it to a marble- 
worker in the city of Minneapolis, and told him she 
was a widow with a family of children, and wanted 
work. The dealer examined the work, said that it 
was good, and that he would give her work on two 
conditions: first, she should promise not to work for 
any other dealer in the city; and, second, she should 
promise not to open business on her own account in 
the city. She said she would agree to this if he would 
agree to keep her in work aU the time. But this 
' lord of creation ' would agree to nothing of the kind. 
She went to St. Paul, and there got work without 
special agreements, and is now in Winona." So says 
*' The Woman's Journal." 



WOMEN IN BUSINESS. 611 

In the " New Century " for Oct. 14, 1876, is a pleas 
ant reference to a new business for women, — the 
making of fern-leaf mottoes, — the idea of which enter- 
prise originated with Mrs. Anna K. Weavee, who is 
now laboring under the Woman's Foreign. Missiona/y 
Society in Bogota, South America. Hundreds of 
women are now assisting in the construction and sale 
of these lovely mottoes, Mrs. I. R. Nicholas of Phila 
delphia being at their head. 

It should have been mentioned earlier that women 
have had a hundred years of experience in retail trade, 
and also in horticulture, and in the relation of business 
copartnership, as Mr. Higginson showed by ancient 
advertisements, in " The Woman's Journal." 

In the business of raising bees, Mrs. Eliza Tupper 
was very successful until serious illness interfered with 
her labors ; but she toiled long enough to prove that 
bee-culture can be accomplished by women. 

" The Woman's Journal " says, " Two girls in a 
small town in Ohio run a blacksmith's shop all by 
themselves. They dress in bloomer costume, and shoe 
horses just as a man does." 

The name of Susan King must not be omitted, 
since she is the prime mover of the Woman's Tea 
Company in New York City, of which Mme. Demo- 
rest is the president. Miss King accumulated a large 
fortune by real-estate transactions, and then started 
her present business. She has been herself to China, 
and examined teas, and made the acquaintance of the 
merchants, and is now doing a successful business on 
Broadway, setting an example of industry and enter- 
prise. 

Among the intelligent and successful business women 
of the century may be numbered Mrs. Chablotte 



612 WOMEN OF THE OKNTTTBY. 

FowiiEB Wells, the sister cf tLe plirenologists Fowler, 
and wife of S. R. Wells, the well-known writer and 
publisher of valuable hygienic works. Several times 
her foresight and business ability saved the firm of 
Fowler and Wells from failure ; and to her at first her 
famous brothers were indebted for their success. She 
was a teacher, then a lecturer on phrenology, then 
engaged as a working-partner in the business of the 
enterprising firm of Fowler and Wells, — the business 
which since the death of her husband she has con- 
ducted with marked ability. 

" The accumulation of property by the late Mrs. 
Mather Remington of Fall River was something re- 
markable. Although she was in business but a few 
years, and at that almost a girl, and without assist- 
ance, she left an estate which will reach nearly forty 
thousand doUars. Her investments were shrewdly 
made, and were often exceedingly remunerative. As 
a shrewd buyer of goods, she had no superior in the 
market." 

Among the women in business, surely are the 
renowned factory-girls, some of whom, like LuoT 
Lahcom, have become notable in other ways than at 
the loom. Mrs. Harriet H. Robinson wrote for 
" The Boston Journal " a fine sketch of Lowell, in 
which occurred these paragraphs : — 

THE FEEST FACTORY GIRLS. 

" Trocps of young girls came by stages and baggage- 
wagoiid ; and men were employed to go into other 
States and Canada, and collect them at so much a head, 
and deUver them at the factories. 

" A very curious siglit these country girls presented 
to young eyes accustomed to a more modern style 



WOMEN EN BUSINESS. 613 

of things. When the large covered baggage-wagon 
Arrived in front of a block on the corporation, they 
fl^ould descend from it, dressed in various and outland- 
ish fashions (some of the dresses, perhaps, having served 
for best during two generations), with hair done up in 
(to us) almost impossible ways, and with their arma 
brimfull of bandboxes containing all their worldly 
goods. Here let me pay a passing tribute to that obso- 
lete appendage to a lady's baggage, — the bandbox- 
It has a New England history almost coeval -^izh. that 
of Lowell. It began to be made in perfectico about 
fifty years ago in Jaffrey, N.H., by a womar named 
Hannah Davis, who manufactured the first nailed 
band-boxes in the country, and made herself rich thereby. 

" Another Hannah — Hannah Moee — always trav- 
elled with the immortal bandbox, besides her ' great 
bag, little bag, basket, bundle.' The bandbox was 
made of all sizes, many of them being large enough to 
hold quite a wardrobe. Now the omnivorous ' Sara- 
toga ' has swallowed them all up, and it is my fate to 
chronicle the ' last of the bandbox.' 

" These country girls, as they were called, had queer 
names, which added to the singularity of their appear- 
ance. Samantha, Trifeny, Plumy, Elgardy, and FloriUa, 
were common among them. They soon learned the 
ways of tiie new place to which they had come ; and 
after paying for their transportation they used their 
earnings to re-dress themselves, and in a little while 
were as stylish as the rest ; for they had good New 
England blood in them, and blood tells even in factory 
people. In time most of them changed their names to 
Mrs. — something ; and later, when Andrew Jackson 
visited Lowell, no peculiarity of dress in the operatives 
was seen ; but walking four deep in priKcession to his 



614 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

honor, clothed in white, these Lowell factory-girls 
looked, to use the words of a contemporaneous writer, 
* like liveried angels.' " 

Mrs. Robinson has given U3 a pleasant picture of 
herself in the following : — 

THE FIRST STRIKE, 

Or ' turn-out ' as it was called, was in 1836, and was 
caused, of course, by the reduction of wages. The op 
eratives were very indignant : they held meetings, and 
decided to stop their work, and turn out, and let the 
mills take care of themselves. Accordingly one day 
they went in as usual ; and when the machinery was 
well started up, they stopped their looms and frames, 
and left. In one room some indecision was shown 
among the girls. After stopping their work they dis- 
cussed the matter anew, and could not make up their 
minds what to do, when a little girl of eleven years 
old said, 'Jam going to turn out, whether any one else 
does or not,' and marched out, followed by all the 
others. The ' turn-outs ' all went in procession to the 
grove on ' Chapel Hill,' and were addressed by sym- 
pathizing speakers. Their dissatisfaction subsided or 
burned itself out in this way ; and, though the authori- 
ties did not accede to their demands, they returned to 
their work, and the corporations went on cutting down 
the wages. 

" The agents of the corporations, on whom the man- 
tle of Kirk Boott's arbitrary power rested, took some 
small revenges on the supposed ringleaders among the 
strikers ; and, on the principle of sending the weaker to 
the wall, the mother of this child, a widow, was turned 
away from the boarding-house she kept on one of the 
corporations, for not * controlling this leading spirit. 



WOMEN LN BUSINESS. 615 

The poor mother was injured irreparably ; but the child 
will never be so triumphant again, unless it is given to 
her to lead the army of equal suffragists to victory." 

A Detroit woman named Ann Smalley has moved 
buUdings, and caused men in her employ to build half 
a mile of sidewalk. 

A woman in Dorchester, N.H., during the illness of 
her husband, tapped their sugar-orchard, cut her wood, 
gathered the sap, and made about four hundred pounds 
of sugar. 

An army of women have been engaged in Wash- 
ington, in the various kinds of business required in the 
Treasury Department, among them Rebecca Wright, 
married in 1871 to William Bensal. She was the Httle 
Quaker lady who told Sheridan about Early's move- 
ments in September, 1864, by means of which he sent 
Jubal whirling down the valley ; and for which he 
gave her a splendid watch and chain, and the Govern- 
ment gave her a profitable place in the Capitol.' 

" Miss Lillie Slocum is the owner and manager of an 
omnibus line in Quincy, Mass., upon whose neat and 
commodious vehicles the people look with much pride 
and satisfaction." 

" Mrs. Shelton, of Santa Clara County, was the first 
to introduce bees into California, bringing two hives in 
1853. The swarms of bees that now fly about tlit Pa- 
cific Coast are said to be the product of these two hives. 
She sold one of them for $550." 

" Elizabeth Mary Gill, Cobbler. A white canvas sign 
with a red border, in a window at 278 Mulberry Street, 
New York, reads as follows : ' Mrs. Gill, Boot and Shoe 
Maker ; Repairing Neatly Done.' Mrs. Elizabeth Mary 
Gill was born in Northampton, England, and learned her 

1 Interesting statistics concerning woman's labor In Massachusetts 
<n«T he fonnri in The VP"onian's Jo'irnal for Jnne 3, 1871. 



616 WOMEN OF THE CENTUSY. 

father's trade. She married a cobbler also, and thirteep 
years ago came to this country. Since her husbands 
death she has supported her six children by her craft. 
She deserves to be called a daughter of America now." 

*' Miss Betty Green, of Forsyth County, Ga., has two 
silk dresses of which she may reasonably be proud, she 
having iu,ised the silk-worms, spun the silk, and woven 
and colored it with her own skillful hands." 

" In the West, women are gradually filling all depart- 
ments of labor. The latest occupation is that of Mrs. 
Sarah I. Aiken, who is making postal currency and 
independence by rowing over the INIississippi, and trans- 
ferring passengers from Clinton, la., to Garden Plain, 
lU." 

If readers watch the '' Notes concerning Women " 
given in each number of " The Woman's Journal," 
they will be surprised to find how many avenues to 
competence are open to women in the kinds of business 
they can and do undertake. 

Very many women of our century are business 
women in the best sense, — active, intelligent, upright, 
— and need not fear that opportunities will not be theirs 
in the future. Women are now successful as teleg- 
raphers, in post-offices, as clerks and bookkeepers. 
And when we call into account the army of workers in 
homes, stores, and factories, we must say that no 
nation ever could show more energetic women, — more 
women worthy of praise for business capacity ; and 
this is not the extravagance of eulogy and preference, 
but the sober mention of an encouraging fact. 




CHAPTER XIX. 

WOMEN OF FAITH. - 

Christian Mothers, Wives, Sisters, and Daughters — The Praying- 
Bands — The Crusaders — Lucy Hoyt — " Mabelle " — Mother Tay- 
lor — The Bethesda Home — Phebe Palmer. 

" It is sweet to go when the Master calls, 
If your work Is all well done ; 
It is sweet to rest when the day is past. 
If that rest has been fairly won. 

It is sweet to stand on the river's brink, 

So close to the other side, 
That you see the loved who are coming down 

To cross with you the tide." 

"Mabelle" {Mrs. Farmer). 

" I thank God . , . when I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in 
thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice." — 2 Tim. 
i. 3-5. 

HAD the limits of this volume permitted, a favorite 
idea, especially of the publisher and his vs^ife, 
might have been elaborated in this chapter. As it is, 
brief reference must be given to the fact that there are 
multitudes of women who " walk by faith, and not by 
sight." We count among these all the Christian 
mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters of our land, the 

617 



€18 WOMEN OF THK CENTO BY. 

praying-bands in many churches, the crusaders in tem- 
perance ranks, and very many unknown to fame who 
have lived long lives of usefulness, or spent many year? 
in sickness, all the while sustained by a serene trust ii 
God that was almost a walking by sight. Mrs. LuoY 
HoYT, known as "Aunt Lucy" among the Universalista, 
a native of Danbury, Conn., now in the Old Ladies' 
Home at Poughkeepsie, N.Y., is an example of a 
woman, almost a hundred years old, whose faith has no* 
faltered for more than half a century. 

Among the women of faith who have helped others 
incalculably to exercise Christian trust, is Mrs. Phebb 
Palmer, the author of " The Promise of the Father." 
" The Woman's Journal " of Nov. 28, 1874, says, " Mrs. 
Phebe Palmer, a well-known Methodist lady, who died 
at her residence in New York City, Nov. 2, was a firm 
advocate of the Wesleyan doctrine of holiness of heart. 
For thirty-six successive years, meetings were held in 
her parlors every Tuesday afternoon. These meetings 
h-itracted many prominent religious people. Bishop 
Hamlin, Prof, and Mrs. Upham, Pearsall and Hannah 
U. Smith, and others of different denominations, at- 
tended when in the city. Mrs. Palmer travelled exten- 
sively as an evangelist. She visited Canada and the 
Provinces, and all parts of the West and South, and 
spent four years in Great Britain, holding meetings 
almost daily. Besides these abundant labors, she wrote 
many books, and edited ' The Guide to Holiness.' 
Some of her books have passed through forty editions. 
Her name will rank with those of Mary Fletcher and 
Hester Ann Rogers, among Methodist women." 

Mrs. MiRA CAiiDWKLL may be mentioned in this 
connection as the editor of a small paper devoted to 
the same themes. She is the wife of Rev. Augustine 
Caldwell, a poet as well as able Methodist preacher. 



WOMEN OP FAITH. 619 

" Mabbllb " (the nam de plume bj which Hannah, 
the gifted wife of Moses G. Farmer, the inventor and 
electrician, is known) represents one who has exhibited 
tJie faith that overcomes in the years of sickness she 
has known. When racked with pain, writing only at 
intervals, with a pencil, to friends afar, she was always 
" Happy Mabelle." Her poems would form a volun e 
of interest; and an account of her work in war-timp, 
though on a sick-bed, a record which would awaken 
wonder. She is a native of Maine, but resided long in 
Salem, Mass. In that city is another lady, Mrs. Eliza 
G. Moody, who has been a great sufferer for nearly a 
third of a century. With tortured and distorted frame, 
the light of the soul still beams with calm and holy 
radiance ; and her faith is a lesson to those in health, 
her cheerfulness a rebuke to those who murmur. Over 
all the land are these pale, patient, suffering ones 
(Ruth Brown of Nantucket among them), who with 
the infirmities of age, and the pangs of disease, are yet 
hopeful and rejoicing in the Lord. Many of these suf 
fering ones have wrought wonders in the way of scat- 
tering the seeds of truth, even though they were 
confined for years to the bed or room of sickness. By 
word of exhortation, by written word of truth for the 
press, by earnest, fervent prayer, they heeded the 
poetic injunction, — 

" Drop thou the seed in the earth, 

And know the sweeteat blessing of the skies ; 
See how a miracle by faith is wroxight: 

From the earth's altar, Giod accepts the sacrifice." 

Thus wrote Mrs. Lucy M. Cbeemer, one of the 
Bweet young poeta who have blossomed into usefulness 
through the faith of the gospel. A native of Milford, 



620 "WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Conn., but dwelling most of her life in New Haven, 
Conn., she is just commencing a career of usefulness, 
writing for various periodicals the sweet, strong worda 
which indicate the living spring in the soul. She 
should have been classed with our women poets. 

Among the women of faith was the wife of Vice- 
Pres. Wilson. Her maiden name was Haekiet M. 
HowB. She died in May, 1870. At the time of her 
-ieath, Mrs. Mahy Clemmer, one of our best writers, 
thus wrote : — 

" Within the last week the body of one has been laid 
in her native earth, whose lovely presence wUl long be 
missed in Washington. Mrs. Wilson, the wife of Sena- 
tor WUson, went out from among us in the fair May 
days ; and the places which have known her here so 
long and so pleasantly will know her, save in memory, 
no more forever. She was a gentle Christian woman. 
I have never yet found words rich enough to tell all 
that such a woman is. My pen lingers lovingly upon 
her name. I would fain say something of her who 
now lives beyond the meed of all human praise, that 
would make her example more beautiful and enduring 
to the living. For in profounder intellectual develop- 
ment, resulting from wider culture and larger opportu- 
aity, are we in no danger of losing sight of those graces 
of the spirit, which, however exalted her fate, must 
remain to the end the supreme charm of woman? 
There is nothing in all the universe so sweet as a 
Christian woman, — as she who has received into her 
heart, till it shines forth in her character and Ufe, the 
love of the divine Master. 

" Such a woman was Mrs. Wilson in this gay capital 
When great sorrow fell upon her, and ceaseless suffer- 



WOMEN OF FAITH. 621 

Ing, the light from the heayenly places fell upon hei 
face : with an angel patience, and a childlike smile, 
and an unfaltering faith, she went down into the valley 
of sha(?ows. She possessed a keen and wide intelli- 
gence. She was conversant with public questions, and 
interested in all those movements of the day in which 
her husband takes so prominent a part. Retiring by 
nature, she avoided instinctively all ostentatious dis- 
play ; but, where help and encouragement was needed 
by another, the latent power of her character sprang 
into life, and then she proved herself equal to great 
executive effort. No one can praise her so eloquently 
as he who loved her and knew her best. To hear 
Senator Wilson speak of his wife when he taught her, a 
little girl in school ; when he married her, ' the loveli- 
est girl in all the county ; ' when he received into his 
heart the fragrance of her daily example ; when he 
watched over her dying, only to marvel at the endur- 
ance and sweetness and sunshine of her patience, — is 
to learn what a force for spiritual development, what a 
ceaseless inspiration, was this wife to her husband. 
Precious to those who live is the legacy of such a Ufe I " 
Among the works of faith well known in Boston is 
the Consumptives' Home, carried on after the mannei 
of George Miiller's Orphan House in Europe, the 
laborers asking God for means to carry on their work, 
and receiving aid as in answer to prayer ; and with this 
establishment is connected a lady known as a deaconess, 
Miss Lucy R. Drake, of Boston Highlands. "The 
Boston Journal " referred to her in August, 1875, in an 
account of a Methodist camp-meeting held in South 
Framingham, Mass., as follows : " The preacher's place 
was supplied by a deaconess connected with Dr. Charles 
Cullis's Grove Hall institution known as ' a work of 



622 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

faith,' — a lady of prepossessing personal appearance, 
and one of those whose Christian labors during the 
past seven years have entitled her to the respect and 
even love of the many New England ers with whom she 
has become acquainted. Miss Drake is one of the few 
women who have attained success as platform-speakers 
at an early age ; and words fall from her lips with a 
sweetness and power rarely seen. We asked her in 
private conversation to-day what was the object of her 
labors as she travelled over the country, having never 
met her before. Her eyes were lighted as it were with 
earnestness, and her entire countenance pictured reli- 
gious zeal, as she replied, ' My mission is to preach 
Christ to the poor.' She is doing a noble work ; and in 
this connection we would state that Dr. Cullis intends 
sending her as his first missionary to India during the 
latter part of September. Should her life be spared 
until that time, the heartfelt ' God-speed ' of many 
will go with her. 

" She spoke extemporaneously of the great value of 
an abiding religious experience to the mother in her 
home, to the business man in his daily transactions 
with the busy world, and of its adaptation to every 
station in life ; closing with a prayer. Her text was, 
' For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ ; for 
it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that 
believeth.' 

" Miss Drake also engaged the attention, and labored 
to spiritually enlighten the minds, of the ' lambs of the 
flock,' as she gathered them into the children's meeting 
one half-hour after the public dinner service was over, 
by delineating to their youthful minds prominent Bible 
characters, and gently speaking to them of the little 
temptations which would assail them in their onward 
journey in life." 





MOTHER TAYLOPx. 



WOMEN OF FAITH. 625 

The wife of Dr. Cullis is a woman of faith, laboring 
earnestly and successfully in the cause of Christ's rep- 
resentatives, — the poor. 

The devoted, energetic wife of the widely known 
" Father Taylor," was a woman of faith. Deborah 
D. MiLLETT was born in Marblehead, Mass., March 13, 
1797. She was a woman of superior talent, of quiet, 
dignified manner, of true, living Christian enterprise ; 
just the woman to second all her husband's efforts for 
the mariner. " When, after his coming to Boston to 
preach to seamen, she adopted the sons of the ocean as 
her sons, her fidelity was ceaseless. Never did she 
forget them in the meetings or at home : they were 
her accepted burden. A sailor-boy sitting before her 
in meeting was away from home, away from his 
mother, his wife, his sister, amid temptations ; and woe, 
woe was on her if she preached not to him the glorious 
gospel of her Lord and Master! She was never de- 
terred from speaking when she felt her Saviour gave 
her a message to deliver. She uttered it, whether in 
the private class-room where the privileged few met to 
note progress, and to help each other, or in the vestry- 
meeting with its larger audience, or the church itself 
with its packed seats. When she arose, the dignity 
and gentleness of her manner, the pathos of her rich, 
full voice, soft yet distinct, the tenderness of intonation, 
the lavishness of loving persuasion, the motherhood of 
her soul put into language choice, strong, and full of 
the power of beauty, was music as of heaven, with a 
' Thus saith the Lord ' added." 

Those who would know more of this saintly woman 
are advised to read the Memoir of Father Taylor,^ a 

1 Written by Bishop Haven and Judge Russell, and published by 
B. B. Russell. 



^^^ WOMEN OF TAB CENTURY. 

volume of thrilling interest. She passed from earth 
peacefully, June 23, 1869. 

Abigail H. Whittier, the mother of the Quaker 
poet, was one of the many in her peaceful sect who 
walk by faith. She died in Amesbury, Mass., not 
many years ago. " The Friends' Review " published the 
following from a letter written by her son : " All that 
the sacred word ' mother ' means, in its broadest, full- 
est significance, our dear mother was to us, — a friend, 
helper, counsellor, companion ; ever loving, gentle, and 
unselfish. She was spared to us until her seventy- 
eighth year, and passed away, after a sickness of about 
three weeks, in the fuU possession of her faculties, in 
exceeding peace, and with an unshaken trust in the 
boundless mercy of our Lord. It was a beautiful and 
holy death-bed. Perfect love had cast out all fear." 
Her daughter, Elizabeth H. Whittier, was a graceful 
writer ; and, when she went to her mother, " The New- 
buryport Herald " said of her, " Regard for the delicacy 
of a nature which held itself shiinkingly aloof from 
publicity forbids more than a passing tribute to its rare 
loveliness ; but it may at least be said, that with her 
has passed away a life fragrant with Christian graces, 
and beautiful in its charities, a character at once 
strong and delicate, and a mind rich in those qualities 
which will always link her memory with the fame of 
the deepest-hearted poet of our country and time." 
Is it any wonder, that, with such women about him, 
the great poet should have written to the women in a 
suffrage convention at Newport in 1869, as follows ? — 

" I have seen no good reason why mothers, wives, 
and daughters should not have the same rights of 
person, property, and citizenship which fathers, hus- 



WOMEN OF FAITH. 627 

bands, and brothers have. The sacred memory of 
mother and sister, the wisdom and dignity of women 
of my own religious connection, who have been accus- 
tomed to something like equality in rights as well as 
duty, my experience as a co-worshipper with noble 
and self-sacrificing women as graceful and helpful in 
their household duties as they are firm and courageous 
in their public advocacy of unpopular truths, the 
steady friendships which have inspired and strength- 
ened me, and the reverence and respect I feel for 
human nature, irrespective of sex, — all these compel 
me to look with something more than acquiescence 
upon the efforts you are making." 

Among the works of faith similar in plan and effort 
to the Consumptives' Home, may be mentioned the 
Bethesda Home, of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, which 
was begun in a small way in 1859, by Miss Annie W. 
Clement, who had been engaged in missionary work 
among the destitute of that city. 

The records of tlie Bethesda Home show that those 
who trust in God shall not be confounded. Like 
Franck's Mission House in Germany, Miiller's Orphan 
House, and the Consumptives' Home, this institution 
for orphans is sustained by unsolicited gifts, received 
in answer to prayer, as its founder firmly believes, who 
retired from a lucrative business to give herself to the 
work of benevolence. A graphic description of the 
home is given by a writer. It is called '* One Romance 
of Charity." 

" It was on a dull stormy day in January that we 
made our way to the Bethesda Home, through the 
heaviest of country roads. We had no difficulty in 
finding it, although it is quite away from the town : for 



628 WOMEN OF THE OKNTTJBr. 

all the people we met seemed well able to direct nt 
The building is situated quite by itself, although withii 
a short distance of a railroad-station, in a grove of cedar- 
trees. It is a large, comfortable-looking stone house, with 
a jBne portico in front, and carriage-drive up to the door. 

" We were shown into the front parlor, which is a 
beautiful room, neatly and appropriately furnished. 
After a little conversation with Miss Clement, she took 
us to see the children, who had just been collected 
for afternoon school. They were in a beautiful school- 
room on the other side of the hall, all seated at their 
desks, and employed with slate and pencil or their 
books. We were deliglited to see such a healthy, 
happy-looking set of children, most of them under ten 
years of age. They all looked so neat, with clean 
faces and hands, and hair nicely brushed, that we 
thought they would compare favorably with many little 
ones who have fond mothers to care for them. As we 
looked at the clean calico frocks, and whole but 
patched trousers, we thought what a work it must be 
to keep over thirty children thus neatly clothed, espe- 
cially as most of their garments are partly worn ones 
sent by kind friends of the Home. 

" There are only two boys in the institution, beside 
the babies, — one aged nine years, and the other four. 
All the children attend Sunday school at Chestnut 
Hill, some going to the Presbyterian, and others to the 
Episcopal, as these are the nearest at hand. Those 
under ten years of age attend the day-school in this 
room, which is taught by Miss Clement's niece. There 
are only three older girls, who have keen inmates of 
the Home since it was fii-st established ; and these go 
to the school at Chestnut Hill. 

" We noticed among the children some very intelli- 



WOMEN OF FAITH. 631 

gent faces ; one little blue-eyed girl, of about four 
years, especially interested us. We found she was a 
new-comer, and had neither father nor mother. What 
a blessed work to gather in these homeless little ones, 
and tell them of a Saviour's love, and bring them up 
to fear and love God ! 

"We then went up-stairs to see the babies. Two 
dear little things, under a year old, were tended by 
nice-looking women ; and three other children, who 
seemed to be about two years old, were playing around 
the room. The absence of any thing like a uniform in 
the dress of the children makes this Home seem more 
like a large private family than a charitable institution. 
The babies especially looked very sweet in their white 
dresses and scarlet sacks, which, as outgrown gar- 
ments, had probably been sent to them. The whole 
second floor was so nicely heated by the furnace, that 
the children were not confined to one room, but had 
the range of bedrooms, hall, and playroom, which 
must be greatly conducive to health. 

" The floors are beautifully laid in hard wood ; and 
all the furniture being new, and every thing in exquis- 
ite order, we thought we had never seen a more 
beautifully kept house. The bedrooms are all furnished 
with single iron bedsteads, good bedding, and nice 
white quilts. We then visited the bathroom, where 
the rows of brushes, combs, and tooth-brushes, were in 
keeping with the orderly appearance of the rest of the 
house. Miss Clement let us peep into a large closet, 
where the bundles of part-worn clothing are put before 
they are altered and fixed over for the children, as she 
remarked, ' You would not believe what we make out 
of these things.' She then showed us the closet where 
the children's Sunday clothes are kept, — nice-looking 



632 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

suits for the girls, with scarlet hoods, &c., all made 
over, and from odd pieces which have been sent in. 
We also saw another large closet where, on long rowa 
of hooks, were hung clean but faded calicoes, for 
common wear. 

" We then visited the third floor, which is furnished 
much like the second, with single iron bedsteads. 
Two communicating rooms on this floor are set apart 
for sick-nurseries, so that in contagious diseases the 
patient can immediately be separated from the rest 
of the family. The beautiful views of the surrounding 
landscape which are to- be seen from the large and 
airy windows of this lovely home make these neat lodg- 
ing-rooms doubly attractive. Here, in her comfortable 
little room, we saw an old lady, Mrs. W. She is over 
ninety, and the only one left of those helpless aged 
women who were received by Miss Clement when 
the Home was first opened. She is quietly resting in 
Jesus, and waiting to be called to her heavenly home. 

" We then descended to the first floor, and visited 
the dining-room and kitchens. Here every thing was 
like wax-work. The tables were all laid in order for 
supper ; and the kitchen reminded us of those we have 
seen in New England, which looked as if some fairy 
had, by a touch of her wand, put every thing in perfect 
order, and then vanished. Miss Clement informed us 
that the older children help a great deal with the work, 
as it is the object of the Home to instruct them in 
every department of housework and in needlework, so 
that at fifteen or sixteen they may be able to get 
good situations in Christian families, where they can 
earn a respectable livelihood either as seamstresses or 
eervants, as they may be best adapted. Six good-sized 
l-edquilts were made last year, by children from nine 



WOMEN OF FAITH. 633 

to twelve years old ; and six more were nearly com- 
pleted, made by still younger children. The law of 
the house seems to be industry ; and even the very little 
ones try to make themselves useful. 

" Once or twice a week they are invited into the 
parlor to sew, or play games ; and often, on Saturday 
afternoon, Miss Clement has f ome sort of an entertain- 
ment for them. 

" Miss Clement is assisted in her work by her niece. 
Miss A. L., who has f r many years given herself and 
means to this blessed work, and by another young 
friend, who, although delicate, is of great assistance, 
both in sewing and in the care of the children. "There 
are also three hired women who represent the nation- 
alities of Sweden, Denmark, and Germany ; and a man- 
servant from Switzerland. Several of the women can- 
not speak English ; and we were much interested in 
hearing Miss Clement relate that in their family wor- 
ship, which the women attend, they sometimes take 
part by prayer, each in her own language. 

" We feel it to be indeed cause for gratitude that 
such a lovely Christian home has been provided for so 
many poor children who would otherwise be shut out 
from its light and love." 

Let the name be placed here of a faithful worker, a 
daughter of Lucre tia Mott, who was one of the man- 
agers of Swarthmore College. The report of her fellow- 
laborers, December, 1874, contains these words : — 

" Anna M. Hoppek was not actively engaged in the 
work of the college at its commencement, but she 
entered into its management in time to render impor- 
tant service in organizing and arranging its various 



^34 WOMEN OF THE CENTUEY. 

departments ; and from that time forward the institution 
had no more zealous and efficient worker. Her strong, 
clear intellect, united with great practical ability, qual- 
ified her for a wide field of usefulness in the active 
government of the college ; and the trusts committed 
to her were discharged with the conscientious fidelity 
which so strongly marked her character. 

" Her calm, deliberate judgment was so just in ita 
decisions, that its influence was felt to be of great im- 
portance in deciding difficult qi» istions, while she ever 
commended her own views by a courteous respect for 
the opinions of others. From her first appointment as 
manager, she was an active member of the Executive 
Committee, ministering to the various needs of the 
college with a zeal and energy that never flagged, 
while her advanced ideas and just views upon educa- 
tional subjects made her counsels of great value in the 
department of instruction. 

"She was rarely absent from our meetings, even 
during the last year of her life, when her failing health 
was painfully noticed by all. Her quiet, unobtrusive 
nature shrank from notice ; but the powerful influence 
of her character and example was felt and appreciated 
by those who had the privilege of knowing its intrinsic 
dignity and excellence, and leaves with us a sorrowful 
consciousness of the loss which we have sustained." 

The army of Christian workers in the sabbath schools 
in our land may be numbered among the women of 
faith and hope and love, for they are self-denying 
toilers in a wide field of usefulness. Mrs. Kathekinb 
Stakbuck of Nantucket, Ellen E. Miles, and Mrs. 
C. A. Wenshtp of Wakefield, Mass., have displayed 
great ability and fidelity as superintendents ; doubtless 



WOMEN OF FAITH. 635 

they are but types of many others. Mrs. Winship is a 
scholarly woman, who was a successful teacher many 
years, and has written admirably for the press, but 
not so much as her friends desire. She ha^s displayed 
marked genius in arranging sabbath-school concerts, 
and holds the children to the school by her own per- 
sonal efforts and magnetism. The noble lessons learned 
from her are never forgotten. Miss Miles has composed 
for her pupils excellent dramas and poems for reci- 
tation. Mrs. Starbuck is now visiting the Holy Land. 

The honor of starting Sunday schools in our country 
is generally accorded to Joanna Prince and Nancy 
Welch, both then in Beverly, Mass. The former was 
the mother of Rev. Prof. C. C. Everett of Harvard 
College. Among the women of faith, should be classed 
many of the workers in our mission schools and homes, 
who like Lizzie T. Lewis of the Horward Mission, 
Deborah G. Brown, and Caroline Barnard, in the 
Five Points House of Industry, are serving God in 
caring for the poor and forsaken. God bless them 
every one I Let one more Sunday-school worker be 
named. To her memory there is a tablet in the Uni- 
tarian Church in Somerville. When it was placed 
there the venerable donor. Rev. R. M. Hodges, preached 
.n reference to it, and gave a brief sketch of Miss 
Whittredge thus reported : — 

Elizabeth Page, daughter of Livermore Whittredge 
of Beverly, was employed as a public-school teacher in 
Somerville early in its history as an independent town- 
ship. A well-cultivated mind, and a heart in sympathy 
with the requirements of children, gave her special 
favor and corresponding ability. It is to be observed 
also, that an influence calm and patient, and religiously 



636 WOMEN OP THE CENTUBY. 

endowed, bom of the Spirit of God, and developed by 
the discipline of a lingering and moital disease, secured 
without ostentation a superadded sweetness and charm 
to her character. Her religious affections, at a time 
when the counsel of prudence in subserviency to her 
health would have rightly checked . her in her course, 
prompted her to supplement her active duties on secu- 
lar days by labors of love on Sundays, in the direction 
of the Christian culture of such children as might be 
placed in her charge. The room in which she taught 
the rudiments of English knowledge on weekdays, 
and the elementary truths according to Jesus on the 
Lord's Day, was situated in a small wooden one-story 
building in Medford Street. My earliest record in re- 
lation to the friend we have in mind is to this import : 
'April 7, 1844, I met the Sunday school, and addressed 
it. There were about sixty children. They have been 
collected together and cared for principally by Miss E. 
P. Whittredge.' 

" Subsequently until the autumn of that year, her 
residence, and her duties as a common-school instructor, 
continued in SomervUle. Her interest in the Sunday 
school was undiminished ; but her labors had to be 
somewhat restricted. Toward the end of the summer 
months it could not be concealed that the work of 
incurable disease was approaching its consummation. 
Her faith, resting on the Messiahship of Jesus, was to 
her at this time a blessed comfort, and the foundation 
of an immortal hope. At the close of an examination 
of her school on the 4th of October, 1844, the end of 
her vocation and of her residence in SomervUle took 
place. She died Aug. 28, 1845, of consumption." 

Mr. Hodges followed this interesting sketch by some 




MOTHER GARFIELD. 



WOMEN OF FAITH. G39 

remarks about the significance and usefulness in ethics 
of monumental devices and inscriptions, as appealing to 
the sympathies and exciting the aspirations of those 
beholding them. That monument which commemo- 
rates a noble deed or a religious work is more valuable 
than those which mark the past greatness of a warHke 
hero. Then remarking that those who aspire high 
must have a high object to which to aspire, he passed 
on to apply his remarks to the subject of Sunday-school 
work, and closed his discourse with some very appropri- 
ate and interesting remarks as to his own faith in the 
religion of the New Testament as a religion qualified 
to save and to elevate mankind. 

Among the women whose works proved her strong 
faith may be mentioned Mrs. Eliza Garfield, who 
was a Ballou (a niece of Hosea Ballon, the celebrated 
Universalist preacher), and who became the wife of 
Abram Garfield in 1819, and the mother of several chil- 
dren, the youngest of whom was our martyred President, 
James A. Garfield. Removing with her husband to the 
West in times when pioneer work was to be done, she 
labored hard and long, and being left a widow with a 
dependent family, she exerted herself beyond the usual 
need even of pioneer wives, and performed almost incred- 
ible deeds of heroic devotion to her duty as a mother, 
caring for her children's moral and phvsical welfare, and 
gaining for them their daily bread by hand labor of the 
hardest kind. She appreciated the advantages of educa- 
tion, and encouraged the son who, was afterward to be 
President, ^o obtain the knowledge which she felt would 
be power, and she had no reason to repent of her eflForts. 
In all her privations and labors she was sustained by a 
strong, abiding Christian faith, which had its perfect 
work and crown, not alone when she saw her son exalted 
to the highest place in his native land, but when she 



640 WOMEN OF THE CENTURT. 

learned of his Christian patience and fortitude during 
those weary days of suffering, and felt at last that his 
was the triumphant death of the trusting child of God, 
whom she had trained for labor or sacrifice, for a faith 
revealed in works and for a crown of glory. 




CHAPTER XX. 

WOMEN INVENTOES. 

The Cotton-Gin — The Sifter — Woman's Industries and Inventions 
— Inventions suggested by Accident. 

" Whatever strong-armed man hath wrought, whatever he hath won, 
That goal hath woman also reached, that action hath she done." 

Mary M. Chase, 

"She crieth at the gates, ... I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out 
knowledge of witty inventions." — Pkov. viii. 3, 12. 

THE question is sneeringly asked sometimes, Can a 
woman invent ? The great Centennial Exposition 
answered the question satisfactorily to the believer in 
woman's capabilities ; and those who saw and heard 
the dish-washer and other women who were displaying 
their own inventions there will not soon forget them. 
Mrs. Matilda J. Gage, herself an active, intelligent 
worker of the century, in publishing a series of centen- 
nial letters to " The Fayetteville Recorder," gives the 
following interesting statements : — 



642 WOMEN OF THB CENTURY. 

" Let the Woman's Pavilion gather all it can of 
woman's work, it will still fall very far short of an accu 
rate representation of woman's industries and inventions, 
because most of the large manufacturing establishments 
are owned by men ; and, although largely employing 
women, the work done in these establishments owned 
by men will be entered in men's names. For instance, 
Lynn, the great shoe-mart of the country, employs more 
women than men in the manufacture of shoes : yet, as 
no woman owns such an establishment, all such work 
exhibited at the Exposition will come in under men's 
names. So also of the numerous cotton-manufactories 
where prints and muslins and cloths, both bleached and 
unbleached, are made : none of these will appear as 
woman's work. The sewing silks and dress silks, the 
hat and cap manufacturers, the broadcloth makers, the 
hoop-skirt and corset firms, the large clothing establish- 
ments, employ women operatives to a great extent : yet 
the work will be entered in men's names. 

" Women are burDishers of gold and silver, electro- 
platers, and bronzers, watch-case makers, and also do 
the finer part of watches ; are painters of china, painters 
of tiles, do work in holly-wood, manufacture mirror- 
frames, table-tops, scones ; are taxidermists, engravers, 
painters, sculptors. Most of this work will be exhibited 
in the general departments under men's names. The 
mechanical exhibitions from Europe wiU be largely of 
woman's work. The finest Swias-made watches are 
manufactured by women ; the largest maker of cham- 
pagne in the world is a woman ; 'tis a woman who 
manufactures the famous Erard piano ; the largest flax- 
mill in Europe is owned by a woman ; the delicate 
thread-weaving of the Old World is woman's work, as 
also the wonderful lace-making and embroidery, valued 



WOMEN INVENTORS. 643 

higher than the most piecious stones, — these are all 
woman's work 

" Many of woman's inventions have been patented 
under men's names. The largest foundry in the city 
of Troy is run to manufacture horseshoes, one of which 
is turned out every three seconds. The machine which 
does this work was invented by a woman ; but the 
manufacture is canied on under a man's name, and will 
be exhibited as man's work. A Troy foundry-owner 
once told me the best stove he ever knew was invented 
by a woman, but the patent was taken out in a man's 
name. The invention of the cotton-gin, which revo- 
lutionized the industries of the world, was due to a 
woman, Mrs. Greene, though the work was done and 
the patent taken out by Eli Whitney. One of the 
earliest mowing-machines was perfected by a lady of 
my acquaintance, now over eighty years of age, who 
aided her husband in bringing that and a clover-cleaner 
to perfection. This was a New Jersey woman : still 
another New Jersey woman is now living, who invented 
the attachment to the mowing-machine, whereby the 
knives are thrown out of gear whenever the driver 
leaves his seat, thus lessening the liability to accident. 
The first large establishment in the country for the 
manufacture of buttons, the Willistons', was due to a 
woman, though it was run under a man's name. The 
self-fastening button is a woman's invention. The 
machine for making satchel-buttoned paper bags was a 
woman's invention, and a very important one at that ; 
one that had long been tried for by men without suc- 
cess. Before the failure of Ames & Co., these machines 
were manufactured at the works of that company. 

" Of improvements in sewing-machines, woman has 
invented a great number, as quilting-attachments, 



644 WOMEN OF THE CENTDKX. 

threading while in motion, aiiachments for sewing sails, 
&c. Elevators, lubricating felt for car- wheels (a most 
important invention), volcanic furnaces for smelting 
ores, steamer screws, machinery for cotton-factories, 
wood-sawing machines, musical instruments, syllable 
type, submarine telescopes, looms capable of doing three 
times the work of ordinary looms, are among the various 
inventions of women of this country, that will, to a 
great extent, be exhibited as man's. The recent inven- 
tions of two of our own townswomen have been taken 
out in their own names, and, I trust, will find j)lace in 
the Woman's Pavilion. 

" Most of the designs for carpets, oil-cloths, calico, 
and wall-paper, are woman's work, as are also designs 
for the embossing of paper, monograms, &c. ; but of this 
work but little will be credited to them, for reasons I 
have above given. Women need to become something 
more than laborers, something more than mere hands, 
in order to secure just recognition of their industry: 
they need to themselves become heads of establish- 
ments, to own the manufactories, as well as to have 
designed the work done in them. So, at the best, the 
Woman's Pavilion will but poorly represent the indus- 
tries of the women of this country and of the world." 

Regretting that the names of all these women invent- 
ors cannot be placed here, it is with great satisfaction 
the facts are given. The pleasant call of Mrs. Lucy 
Sawyer on the writer with her flour-sifter (the best) 
for which she had received a patent, as it sifted " up 
through the meshes," is not forgotten. 

If we would value these inventions, and those with 
which our brothers have blessed the century now clo» 
ing, we have only to turn the pages of history, or ask 



WOMEN INVENTORS. 645 

8ome venerable grandparent about the household con- 
veniences of a hundred years ago. Dr. Nichols in the 
" Boston Journal of Chemistry " says, " Our fathers 
were groping in almost outer darkness, so far as a 
knowledge of the sciences was concerned ; and but little 
progress had been made in invention and the arts. 
Scarcely one of the modern contrivances for cooking, 
and for warming and lighting dwellings, was known. 
Not a pound of coal or a cubic foot of illuminating gas 
had been burned in the country. No iron stoves were 
used ; and no contrivances for economizing heat were 
employed until Dr. Franklin invented the iron frame 
fireplace which still bears his name. All the cooking 
and warming in town and country were done by the 
aid of fire kindled upon the brick hearth, or in the 
brick oven. Pine-knota or tallow candles furnished 
the light for the winter evenings ; and sanded floors 
supplied the place of rugs and carpets. The water 
used for household purposes was drawn from deep wells 
by the creaking ' sweep ; ' and it is a curious circum- 
stance that both the well, and the building meeting the 
necessities of a water-closet, were often at long distances 
from the house. In a cold windy night in winter, to 
be called toward one of them was something dreadful 
to think of. No form of pump was used in this coun- 
try, so far as we can learn, until after the present cen- 
tury. There were no friction-matches in those early 
days, by the aid of which a fire could be speedily 
kindled ; and if the fire went out upon the hearth over 
night, and the tinder was damp so that the spark 
would not catch, the alternative remained of wading 
through the snow a mile or so, to borrow a brand of a 
neighbor. Only one room in any house was warmed, 
unless some of the family were ill ; in all the rest the 



646 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

temperature was zero during many nights in winter 
The men and women of a hundred years ago undressed 
and retired to their beds at night in an atmosphere 
colder than that of our modem barns and wood-sheds, 
and never complained. No hot-air furnaces or steam- 
pipes tempered the wintry air in their dwelhngs ; and 
they slept soundly in the cold. The cooking was very 
simple, and the nature of the food plain and substantial. 
But few dishes were seen upon the table ; pork and 
cabbage, corn bread, and milk, with bean -porridge, 
were the every-day forms of food consumed." 

Yes, the times are changed, as the following from a 
recent writer shows : — 

" In the Woman's Pavilion the exhibits are all made 
by themselves ; even the running of the Baxter portable 
engine is done by Miss Emma Allison. Her choice of 
this specialty comes from her delight in the study of 
natural philosophy, which gave her a fondness for 
machinery, developed into its comprehension through 
the assistance of her brother, a member of the Engineer 
Corps of the United States Navy. Her means being 
limited, she must follow some remunerative occupa- 
tion ; and hence she accepted this position. Although 
hitherto she had nothing but theoretic information of 
steam processes, she believed it the part of some one 
of her sisters to enter a ' new departure ' requiring as 
much knowledge and skill for its accomplishment, and 
carrying with it as great honor, as teaching school, 
keeping books, operating sewing-machines, copying, 
&c. After the exhibition she will leave this business, 
which she has carried on in the perfection of tidiness 
and grace of manner, and start a hterary magazine in 
San Francisco. We could wish that some of our gentle 



WOMEN INVENTOB8. 647 

expertij might have assisted at the meeting of the 
Pennsylvania Medical Society, and joined in their 
learned addresses upon what so intimately concerned 
them. 

" Feminine biographies teem with the desire of their 
subjects for enlarged opportunities. They have ever 
helped to provide means for what they could not share. 
The oldest scholarship at Harvard, founded in 1785, 
was by Joanna Alford. There are ten others by fair 
donors, of which the annual income is $2,340. Meri- 
torious boys are yearly aided there to the amount of 
$24,500. 

*' Mabqabet Draper of Boston conducted the first 
newspaper iii America. The original Declaration of 
Independence was printed by Mary Katharenb God- 
DARD. Every demonstrator of anatomy is indebted to 
Madame Ducoctdrat for his manikin. Artificial marble 
is the invention of Madame Dutillet. In 1864 Mrs. 
Vandernplasse came from Flanders to England, and 
began the use and manufacture of starch. Behold what 
an industry has sprung from the neat straw bonnet of 
Betsey Baker, worn less than a hundred years ago I 
Mrs. Wilson of London manages the principal line of 
omnibuses. Mrs. Sarrick of Drury Lane conducts a 
theatre. Mrs. Tedralb carries on a brewery. The 
widow of Dr. A. D. Bullock continues her husband's 
practice in Wyoming, R.I. We hear of another whose 
bees yielded twenty thousand pounds of honey in a year. 
In Vassar we have the first lady professor of mathemat- 
ics in any American college. Two at Vermont Univer- 
sity were elected to membership by the Phi Beta Kappa 
Society, as an award for superior scholarship. For the 
past eight years or more there has been connected with 
the Howland School for Young Women an organization 



648 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

known as the Rowland Navy. One of the professors 
manages the crews : otherwise all is done by themselves. 
The Countess Lanner, widow of Frederick VII. of 
Denmark, has left her property of four millions for the 
maintenance of an institution for orphan and deserted 
girls of Denmark. Six hundred or eight hundred will 
be provided for at the castle of Jagerspris in North 
Zealand. We might multiply these facts to weariness, 
but their significance is patent. Good beginnings are 
final certainties. Benjamin Franklin has the credit of 
introducing broom-corn into the United States. While 
examining an imported corn-whisk he found a single 
seed, which he planted in his garden : from that came 
its propagation. We have a tattered certificate of 
membership to the first woman's social charitable 
society in Boston. Could its possessor have even ima- 
gined the network of our kindred associations ? " 

Some woman with suflBcient leisure would do royal 
service to her sex and the cause of woman, if she 
would prepare a volume in which, with all detail, 
might be shown the help of woman in the onward 
progress of society in regard to household and other 
conveniences. It would be then perceived, that, if 
woman had not done as much as her brothers in the 
way of inventions, it was not because the inventive 
genius did not belong to both sexes, but because 
woman's energies and genius had been directed in other 
channels. 

It may also be affirmed that there is a Providence in 
regard to inventions, and that they were Dot granted 
to the family of man till the right time had fully come. 
They have appeared in many instances to be the result 
of accident, which is but another name for a Providence 
unforeseen. Even then woman has had to do with 



WOMEN INVENTORS. 649 

them in some way, as the following from " Chambera' 
Journal " will show : — 

" One of the pleasantest anecdotes relative to an 
invention being suggested by accident bears relation 
to the stocking-loom, or knitting-frame. The stoiy 
has been told in two or three different forms ; but the 
most popular version accords with a picture and in- 
scription preserved by the Frame-work Knitters' Com- 
pany. About a hundred and ninety years ago, Mr. 
William Lee, of St. John's College, Cambridge, was 
expelled for marrying in disregard to the statutes of 
his college. Having no fortune on either side, his 
young wife contributed to their joint support by knit- 
ting. The husband, watching one day the movements 
of her fingers, suddenly conceived the idea of imitating 
them by mechanical means, in order that she might get 
through her work in a manner easier to herself, and 
perchance increase her emoluments. The ingenious 
stocking-frame was the result of his cogitations. In 
hand-knitting, polished steel needles or wires are used 
to link threads together into a series of loops closely 
resembling those produced in tambouring. In frame- 
work-knitting, one person can manage a large numbei 
of knitting-needles at once, — pieces of steel midway 
in shape between straight wires and bent hooks, and 
aided by jacks, or vibrating levers, treadles, rows of 
bobbins, and other clever contrivances. William Lee's 
first stocking-frame was in all probability small and 
very rough ; but it had in it a potentiality (as Dr. John- 
son might have called it) of developing great things, 
until at last it has culminated in that masterly piece of 
mechanism, the circular rotary hosiery machine. Lucky 
accident, in like manner, led, about the year 1764, to 



650 WOMEN OF THJJ CENTIJRY. 

the invention of the spinning-jenny, one of the founda- 
tions of the amazing prosperity of the cotton-manufac- 
ture. But, as in most instances of the kind, the soil 
was prepared in some degree for the reception of the 
seed : the accident would probably have passed unno- 
ticed if there had not been a mind in a condition to 
appreciate it. James Hargreaves of Standhill, near 
Blackburn, was a humble man who lived by hand- 
spinning and weaving ; his wife and children aiding in 
their several ways. He succeeded in expediting his 
work by inventing a carding-machine to comb out, or 
straighten, the fibres of cotton, as a substitute for 
hand-cards (wires inserted in a flat piece of wood). In 
spinning, after the carding and other preparatory pro- 
cesses had been completed, he fi-equently tried to spin 
with two or three spindles at once, by holding two or 
three separate threads between the fingers of his left 
hand, and thus double or treble the amount of work 
effected in a given time. The horizontal position of 
the spindles, however, baffled him ; his fingers and the 
spindles would not work in harmony. One day, in 
1764, a little toddling member of his family upset the 
spinning-wheel while it was being worked. Hargreaves 
noticed, that, while he retained the thread in his hand, 
the wheel continued to revolve for a time horizontally, 
giving a vertical rotation to the spindle. An idea 
started into his brain at once ; here was the very thing 
he wanted. He saw that if something were contrived 
to hold the roving (a thickish coil of cotton), as the 
finger and thumb were wont to do, and to travel back- 
ward and forward on wheels, several spindles might be 
used at once. He set to work ; and the result was a 
frame, or machine, which he called the spinning-jenny 
(very likely his wife's Christian name was Jenny), 



WOMEN INVBNT0E8. 651 

having eight spindles. The family at once largely 
increased their weekly earnings. How it happened 
that through workmen's spite and manufacturers' 
greed, or whether it was, as has been said, that a 
better idea than his had been previously started and 
acted upon by others, Hargreaves was never permitted 
to secure an adequate return for his ingenuity, we 
need not now stop to relate : Lancashire accumulated 
wealth from the spinning-jenny (amplified by degrees 
to eighty spindles), but regarded little the brains that 
had enabled them to do so. When maidens are ' doing 
their hair,' — an important element of daily duty in 
many a household, — they may perhaps be gratified in 
learning that this process led accidentally to a very use- 
ful inventioa. Joshua Heilman, engaged in the cotton- 
manufacture at Mulhouse in Alsace, was long meditat- 
ing on the possibility of inventing a combiug-machine 
for long-staple cotton, the carding-machine until then 
employed being better suited for cotton having a short 
staple. He tried and tried again, and impoverished 
himself by preparing machines and models which faUed 
to realize the intended purpose. Brooding over the 
matter one evening, he watched his daughters combing 
their hair, and noticed (perhaps for the first time really 
noticed) how they drew the long tresses between their 
fingers, alternately withdrawing the comb through 
them. The thought struck him, that if he could suc- 
cessfully imitate by a machine this twofold action, so 
as to comb out the long fibres of cotton, and drive back 
the shorter by reversing the action of the comb, his 
long-sought object would be pretty nearly attained. 
Armed with this new idea, he set to work with renewed 
cheerfulness, and invented a beautiful machine, which 
enabled him to comb cheap cotton into moderately fine 



652 WOMEN OF TELE CENTUI.Y. 

yam, more easily, and with less waste, than by any 
process until then known. One of our Royal Acade- 
micians, about a dozen years ago, brought the skill of 
his pencil to bear upon this pleasant subject for a pic- 
ture, — Heilman watching his daughters combing out 
their glossy tresses." 

The following paragraphs are from the " Woman's 
Journal," Dec. 14, 1872 : — 

" Miss Kate Bahton, a young lady of Philadelphia 
who has a penchatit for practical mechanics, has invented 
an improvement on sewing-machines which will adapt 
them to the manufacture of sails and other heavy 
goods, something heretofore impossible. 

" Mrs. Augusta M. Rodgeks of Brooklyn has, in 
less than four years, received letters-patent from our 
Government for as many as four different inventions, 
— a mosquito-canopy, a folding-chair, a plan for heating 
cars without fire, and an improvement in spark-arresters, 
to be applied to locomotives. The first two are also 
to-day protected by the great seal of England." Under 
date of Dec. 21, 1872, the same journal speaks of " A 
Lady in a Machine-Shop," thus : " Miss Knight of 
Boston has invented a machine for making paper bags, 
and is having a number of them manufactured at 
Chicopee, under her own supervision. The workmen 
employed were at first sceptical as to her mechanical 
ability ; but she cured them of this by going daily, and 
working among them, — detecting mistakes, and im- 
proving plans, with a keener eye than any man in the 
works. Her invention is said to be an invaluable one ; 
and she will make a handsome fortune out of it. When 
a friend ventured to wonder a little at her present 
vocation, and couldn't explain how a woman should 
ever do any thing in machinery, she said — 



WOMEN mVENTOES. 653 

" ' It is only following out nature. As a child, I 
Dever cared for things that girls usually do ; dolls 
never possessed any charms for me. I couldn't see the 
sense of coddling bits of porcelain with senseless faces : 
the only things I wanted were a jack-knife, a gimlet, 
and pieces of wood. My friends were horrified. I was 
called a tomboy ; but that made very httle impression 
on me. I sighed sometimes, because I was not like 
other girls ; but wisely concluded that I couldn't help 
it, and sought further consolation from my tools. I 
was always making things for my brothers : did they 
want any thing in the line of playthings, they always 
said, " Mattie will make them for us." I was famous 
for my kites ; and my sleds were the envy and admira- 
tion of all the boys in town. I'm not surprised at 
what I've done. I'm only sorry I couldn't have had 
as good a chance as a boy, and have been put to my 
trade regularly.' " 

And yet she knows as much about machinery as 
though she had made it a study all her life. It is a 
genuine gift ; and she can no more help making ma- 
chinery than Anna Dickinson can help making speeches. 

The inventor of the seamless bags was Miss LuOY 
Johnson, who died near Providence, R.I., Aug. 22, 
1867, aged seventy-eight. It was in 1824 that " she 
wove seven pairs of seamless pillow-cases, and received 
a premium at the fair held at Pawtucket in October of 
that year. Those pillow-cases, still in a good state of 
preservation, are supposed to have been the first seam- 
less bags ever made. Ignorant of the value of her 
invention, Miss Johnson took no steps to secure a 
patent. Her mode of weaving has since been ingrafted 
on the power-loom, and patented, yielding a fortune 
to the patentees ; while Miss Johnson spent the closing 



654 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

years of her life dependent upon friends, and the charity 
of her native town." Inventors will some day receive 
the rewards they deserve, — 

" When every wrong thing's righted," 

and the Golden Rule prevail. 




CHAPTER XXI. 



WOMElSr LAWYEES. 



Phebe W. Couzins — Myra Brad well — Clara H. Nash ■ 
Ray — Helena Barkalow, and otliers. 



• Charlotte E. 



" Open that old and deathless book, whose words we dai-e not spurn, 
And read her well-deserved renown on every page we turn : 
Here Deborah, the priestess pure, the judge, the poet, shines ; 
And Jephthah's daughter round her sire ner snowy arm hitwines." 

Mary M. Chase. 

" She openeth her mouth with wisdom ; and in her tongue is the law of kind- 
ness." — Peov. xxxi. 26. 

EVER since Deborah judged Israel, there have been 
women capable of judging and legislating. In 
our land there are many who are as capable as the men 
who vote, to legislate for the best good of the com- 
munity; and within the last twenty-five years there 
have been great changes in regard to the legal status of 
women in many of our States ; and several women have 
been admitted to the bar as lawyers. That there was 
need of this, and that there is still need of progress in 
that direction, is evident to all who correctly apprehend 



656 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

the legal disabilities of women, especially of those who 
are married. These differ in different States; but as 
the " common law," so called, prevails in most, their 
disabilities are everywhere greater than justice approves, 
and greater than political equality would permit. 

" At common law," says Prof. Parsons, " the disa- 
bility of a married woman is almost entire. Her per- 
sonal existence is merged for most purposes in that of 
her husband. This was not so among the Anglo- 
Saxons, nor with the earlier Teutonic racen ; and mast 
be explained as one of the effects of the feudal system." 

Qeorge A. Hiscox, Esq., of Litchfield, Conn., quotes 
these words in his valuable tract on the " Legal Disa- 
bilities of Married Women in Connecticut," and then 
goes on to say, — 

" Under that system dependence was the universal 
rule. It was then believed that the peace and well- 
being of the community could only be secui-ed by the 
dependence of the mass of the population on certain 
feudal superiors, and by the further dependence of 
those superiors on one sovereign will. Just as it is 
now argued that equality and order are incompatible in 
the marriage state, it was then supposed that equality 
and order were incompatible in the pohtical state. 
During the centuries that have elapsed since our mar- 
riage law took its .present shape, the emancipation and 
then the enfranchisement of one class after another has 
been effected, till at last, in this country, every male 
citizen has his freedom and his vote. The last step in 
this reform has been attained at the cost of a great 
social and political revolution, overturning the govern- 
ment of the few possessed of property and intelligence, 
and establishing the government of the many possessed 
of neither. This revolution has been effected, and can 



WOMEN LAWYERS. 657 

Duly be j astified, on the principle that no class or race 
of men, however superior by nature and education, can 
be trusted with the political and social control of any 
other class, however degraded by ignorance or inferioi 
by nature. The theory of universal suffrage is based 
on the great lesson of all political experience, that 
only those who suffer from abuses will ever thoroughly 
remedy them. Slavery would have waited long for 
abolition at the hands of slaveholders ; and who will 
claim that Northern philanthiopy was pure enough to 
have abolished slavery, or to have established negro 
suffrage, had there been no manifest military or politi- 
cal advantage to accrue to those abolishing the one, 
or establishing the other ? 

'* The history of the legislation of the last quarter of 
a century regarding the law of marriage forms no excep- 
tion to the general rule. None of those statute allevia- 
tions of the harshness of the common law have reached 
the root of the evil, the absolute personal dependence 
of the wife on the husband. The tenderness with 
which legislatures treat this sole remaining relic of 
a scheme of dependence, once general, is truly won- 
derful, especially as contrasted with the . root-and- 
branch work that has been made with every system of 
male tutelage. . In the fundamental rule of the wife's 
personal subjection, — the most important branch of 
this subject, and the only one yet considered, — no 
reform has even been attempted. In many States the 
property rights of married women have been placed 
on a footing approximating to equality. In none has 
her personal liberty been secured, or her legal servitude 
alleviated, except in the most superficial, we might 
justly say unintentional manner. Yet it must be per- 
fectly obvious that personal rights must precede prop- 



658 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

erty rights to render the latter of any real avail ; the 
securing of ' separate ' property to one under strict 
tutelage to a legal master, is not the thorough work 
legislators make when they remedy abuses under the 
sharp eye of the suffering voter. Society educates 
women with a view to marriage, and to marriage only ; 
yet she cannot marry without renouncing that liberty 
of person, and that equality of right, which are the 
boasted inheritance of every American citizen. With 
the single exception of corporeal chastisement, the 
same modes of enforcing obedience are open to the 
husband that are given to the father. Any system that 
should place a man, arrived at the maturity of his 
bodily and mental powers, in such a state of subjection, 
and should bind him, moreover, to hard labor for a 
mere maintenance, would be reckoned a monstrous 
tyranny. Regulations made shortly after the war, 
which proposed a far less stringent obedience on the 
part of the Southern freedman towards the Southern 
planter, were indignantly rejected by the dominant 
North. The introduction of coolie laborers, bound to 
service for a term of years, has been made a penal 
offence. Yet a system of dependence which condemns 
to complete, if not to harsh servitude a large, indus- 
trious, and intelligent portion- of the Anglo-Saxon race 
continues to be the law of the land." 

In saying these things Mr. Hiscox (who is the 
excellent husband of a superior woman, both respect- 
ing the marriage relation as it should be respected by 
Christians) only shows how important it is that woman 
should have both legislators and lawyers of her own 
sex. 

One such lawyer is Phebb W. Couzins, Esq. 
'* Miss Couzins was admitted to the Law School of the 



WOMEN LAWYERS. 659 

WashiTigton University of St. Louis in 1869. Her 
application was received without a dissenting voice from 
either the Law Faculty, or Board of Directors ; they 
taking the noble stand that the university was open to 
both sexes alike, and if a woman desired to become 
acquainted with the laws which govern her, or to enter 
the profession of the law, the university extended the 
same helping hand to her as to a man. St. Louis has 
the honor, not only of being the first to open the law- 
schools of the United States to woman, but also of 
preparing the first woman sculptor, Harriet Hosmer, for 
her profession by a thorough course of anatomy. East- 
ern colleges having refused her admission, she obtained 
the desired instruction in the St. Louis Medical College, 
through the generous patronage of Wayman Crow, Esq. 
This gentleman was also a member of the board wbich 
received Miss Couzins. Miss Couzins graduated in 
1871 from the university. A dinner was given to the 
Board and Faculty, in honor of the event, by Dr. and 
Mrs. G. S. Walker, at which speeches were made by 
the Board and Faculty, sentiments responded to by 
Rev. Dr. Eliot, Jas. E. Yeatman, and Wayman Crow 
of the Board, which indicated the interest felt in the 
step taken. 

" Miss Couzins coming from the conservative element 
of a pro-slavery State, much interest has been mani- 
fested as to the influences which caused her to take so 
radical a step. 

" She considers the war, and its attendant circum- 
stances, as the one great motor which awakened her 
thought and aroused her interest in behalf of humanity. 
Her mother, Mrs. Adalinb Couzins, was among the 
first to offer her services as volunteer aid to the Sani- 
tary Commission, established at St. Louis, of which Jas. 



660 "WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

E. Yeatman was President. Yet, long before its estab- 
lishment, Miss Couzins was laboring for the ameliora- 
tion of the suffering soldiers, who were rapidly filling 
the city from the battle-fields of the south-west. After 
the battle of Wilson's Creek, where Gen. Lyon fell, 
when the first car-load of wounded soldiers were 
brought to the city, Mrs. Couzins and her husband, 
then chief of police, and acting provost marshal, 
drove out to meet the train with a carriage-load of ban- 
dages, lint, and under-clothing. They helped carry the 
wounded into the unfinished House of Refuge, and 
Mrs. Couzins with her own hands bathed and dressed 
the wounds of the sufferers ; and from that first act of 
woman's devotion, sprang the efficient Ladies' Union 
Aid, one of the finest organizations in the country, 
composed of hundreds of devoted women. 

" During the entire war her mother's labors were of 
the most trying, self-sacrificing character. The presi- 
dent of the Sanitary Commission was wont to call her 
his right-hand man, worth ten ordinary persons." 
When Fremont's army made its disastrous march to the 
south-west, and hundreds of soldiers were left sick and 
dying by the wayside, it was Mrs. Couzins and Miss 
Arethtjsa L. Forbes who braved the winter's storm 
with the thermometer at twenty degrees below zero, 
ascertained their exact condition, and procured their 
transportation into the comfortable post hospitals of 
the city. When the battles of Shiloh, Donaldson, Cor- 
inth, Pillow, Vicksburg, Red, White, Arkansas, Yazoo 
Rivers, and others, occurred, Mrs. Couzins, with the now 
sainted Margaret Breckenridge, would proceed to the 
battle-fields, on the hospital steamers, and carefully 
bring the sick and wounded soldiers to St. Louis, per- 
forming not only the multifold duties of nurse, sur- 



WOMEN LAWYBBS. 6G1 

geon, and physician, but smoothing the dying pillow 
with a mother's prayers, or tenderly closing the eyes of 
the soldier-boy with a mother's tears. 

" The work of her mother on the steamers and in the 
hospitals ; the many harrowing, sad histories which 
came to her through that source, — first awakened her 
mind to the cause which lay back of all these results, 
and aroused the thought, whether or no woman's en- 
lightened thought and action might not prevent in the 
same ratio as she ameliorated the horrors of war and 
its attendant evils. These ideas were slowly taking 
root ; and in 1869 they received a new impulse from 
the woman's franchise organization, composed of some 
of the best and most intelligent women of St. Louis. 
She then began to think of a profession; and at the 
earnest solicitation of Judge John M. Krum, a warm 
personal friend, and member of the law faculty, she 
determined on a legal profession, and appUed for 
admission to the Law School. Since her graduation 
she has been admitted to all the courts of the State 
of Missouri, the United District Court, the courts of 
Arkansas and of the Territoiy of Utah." 

Miss Couzins is a lecturer of marked ability, at once 
dignified and humorous, and always holds her audience, 
elicits applause, and convinces her hearers by her unan- 
swerable logic. 

Other women lawyers there are in several of the 
States. 

" The Des Moines Register " speaks as follows of 
Mrs. Emma Haddock of Iowa City, who on Friday 
last was admitted to practise in the United States Cir- 
cuit and District Courts in Iowa : " Mrs. Haddock is 
the wife of Judge Haddock of Iowa City. She gradu- 
ated in the law department of the State University this 



662 WOMEN OF THE CENTUEY. 

year with high honor. While in this department she 
gained many friends by her modest demeanor, and the 
students had only words of praise for her. She was a 
hard and successful student, and a lady of culture in 
other branches than the law. She is highly esteemed 
in the community in which she lives, and all admire 
her for her talents and sterling good sense. This is a 
worthy honor worthily bestowed ; and the honor of 
being the first female in the United States admitted to 
practise in these courts could fall on no more worthy 
one of her sex." 

The following newspaper clipping is believed to be 
as correct as it is cheering : — 

WOMEN LAWYERS. 

" In 1869 Mrs. B. A. Mansfield was admitted to 
the bar of Iowa under a statute providing that ' any 
white male person' with the requisite qualifications 
should be licensed to practise by virtue of a statute 
providing that ' words importing the masculine gender 
only, may be extended to females,' and the Court held 
that ' the aflirmative declaration that male persons may 
be admitted is not an implied denial to the right of 
females.' (See ' Legal News,' Feb. 9, 1870.) 

" Missouri, under a statute providing that ' any per- 
son' possessing certain qualifications may be licensed 
and admitted to the courts, including the Suj)reme 
Court of that State, in April, 1870, admitted Miss 
Barkalow and Miss Phebe Couzins. (See ' Legal 
News,' April 9, 1870.) 

" Michigan, under a statute using the word ' citizen,' 
admits women to practise. 

" Maine, under a similar statute, admitted, in 1872, 
Mrs. C. H. Nash to the Supreme Court. (See ' Legal 
News,' Oct. 26. 1872.) 



WOMEN LAWYERS. 663 

•' In the District of Columbia Mrs. B. A. LoCKWOOD 
was admitted in 1870, and Charlotte E. Ray in 1872, 
on graduating from Howard University. 

" Illinois has recently made legislative proviso for the 
admission of women ; and Mrs. Myra Bradwell, editor 
of the ' Legal News,' has a large practice in that State. 
The last addition is Miss Mary F. Perry, admitted 
lately to the practice of law in Chicago, 111. 

" Miss La VINA GoODELL, who was admitted to the 
bar at Janesville, Wis., about a year ago, has appeared 
before the Supreme Court at Madison with an applica- 
tion for admission to its bar, with a written argument 
to enforce the same.' " 

" Miss Alta Q. Hulbtt was born on a farm near 
Rockford, 111., June 4, 1854. Her father, G. J. Hulett, 
was a physician, a native of New York. Her mother 
was born in Tennessee, but removed to Illinois while 
young. Dr. Hulett died in 1860, leaving a wife and 
two daughters ; Alta, the eldest, being six years of age. 
The only property left for the support of this widow 
and her two little girls was a home worth a thousand 
dollars in Rockten, a small village near Rockford. 
Here the family lived ; and Alta was placed in the 
public schools, where she remained until her tenth 
year, when, so slender was the family purse, she, too, 
was obliged to become a ' bread-winner.' To this 
end she entered a telegraph-office, and acquired suffi- 
cient knowledge of the business to be appointed ' oper- 
tor ' at Rockten. She at length gave up this position 
in order to return to her books, her mother meanwhile 
managing to support the family by keeping boarders. 
Having made a fortunate venture in real estate, they 
sold their home, and removed to Rockford, in order to 



664 WOMEN OF THE CENTTTRY. 

eujoy the greater educational facilities of that towu. 
Alta entered the Rockford high school, and graduated 
on her sixteenth birthday, when she at once began the 
study of law, although at this time the door to the pro- 
fession seemed hopelessly closed against woman ; but 
the desire to become a lawyer had been an inspiration 
from earliest childhood ; and being possessed of an 
indomitable will, which is a kind of genius, our heroine 
saw no alternative but to fulfil her destiny, which the 
ripening years seemed also to favor. She entered, as a 
student, the law-office of Mr. Lathrop of Rockford, at 
that time and still one of the most eminent practitioners 
at the bar of the State. Here Miss Hulett made good 
use of her opportunities : after a few months' study she 
passed the required examination, and sent her creden- 
tials to the Supreme Court, which, instead of granting 
or refusing her plea for admission, ignored it altogether. 
It may be proper to state here, that Myra Brai>- 
WELL, the successful editor of the ' Legal News,' pub- 
lished at Chicago, had just been denied admission. Her 
case stated in brief is this : Mrs. Bradwell made apph- 
cation for a license to practise law. The Court refused 
her application on the ground of her being a married 
woman : she immediately brought a suit to test the 
legality of this decision. This interesting case was 
carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, 
which sustained the decisions of the lower courts. 
Miss Hulett had reason to expect, that, since she was 
unmarried, this decision would not prejudice the 
decision in her own case. Just on the threshold of her 
chosen profession, the rewards of youthful aspirations 
and earnest study apparently just within her grasp, 
her dismay can be imagined when no response what- 
ever was vouchsafed her petition. A fainter heart 



WOMEN LAWYERS. 665 

would have accepted the situation. To battle success- 
fully with old prejudices, intrenched in the strong- 
holds of the law, required not only marked ability, 
but also a courage which could not surrender. Such 
was the situation in the fall of Miss Hulett's seven- 
teenth year. Grievously disappointed, but not dis- 
heartened, the pressing necessities of the family 
claimed her immediate attention : something must be 
done at once. She took a country school for four 
months, and bravely went to work again. While 
teaching, and ' boarding round,' she prepared a lec- 
ture, ' Justice vs. the Supreme Court,' in which she 
vigorously and eloquently stated her case. This lec- 
ture was delivered in Rockford, Freeport, and many 
other of the larger towns in Northern Illinois, enUsting 
everywhere sympathy and admiration in her behalf ; 
and what was besides, at this juncture, a matter of 
serious importance, the family purse was replenished 
thereby. After taking counsel with Lieut-Gov. Early, 
a friend of the family, and other prominent members 
of the Legislature, she drew up a bill, the provisions 
of which, as passed, are, — 

" ' Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois 
represented in the General Assembly, that no person 
shall be precluded or debarred from any occupation, 
profession, or employment (except military), on account 
of sex. Provided that this act shall not be construed 
to affect the eligibility of any person to an elective 
office. 

" ' Nothing in this act shall be construed as requiring 
any female to work on streets or roads, or serve on 
juries. 

" ' All laws inconsistent with this act are hereby 
repealed." 



666 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

" Friends obtained for this bill a favorable intioduc- 
tion into the Legislature, which passed it, and the gov- 
ernor gave to it his signature. Miss Hulett was passing 
up the steps to her home one rainy day, when the tele- 
gram announcing that her bill had become a law was 
placed in her hands. Trembling in every limb, she 
read the despatch ; when her woman's nature asserted 
itself, and she sank upon the steps, regardless of the 
fast falling rain, and wept tears of joy. To use her 
own words in relating this incident, she said, ' I shall 
never again know a moment of such supreme happi- 
ness.' Immediately, upon the advice of trusted friends, 
she removed to Chicago, a city the peer of Boston in 
its supreme scorn for old-time prejudices. Here she 
passed another year in severe study, when she again 
presented herself for admission. After a most vigorous 
examination, she stood at the head of a class of twenty- 
eight ; all of the others being gentlemen, and her 
seniors. This time the Supreme Court made the 
amende honorable, and courteously and cordially wel- 
comed her into the ranks of the profession. At the 
age of nineteen Miss Hulett began the practice of law 
on an equal footing with her brother lawyers ; having 
been admitted not only into all of the State courts, 
but also into the Circuit Court of the United States. 
To say that Chicago is proud of its first lady lawyer is 
only a mild form of stating the case. Like its famous 
water-crib, grain elevators, &c., she is regarded as one 
of its distinctive institutions. 

" Miss Hulett is worthy of her position, and has 
earned all her honors. That she has ability, persever- 
ance, and courage, the lesson of her life thus far has 
fully demonstrated ; but, much as she has accompUshed, 
she impresses one as possessed of an immense amount 



WOMEN LAWYERS. 667 

of reserved power, and it is felt that the future has 
ahnost unlimited possibilities in store for her. Miss 
Hulett has, in addition to her mental endowments, a 
fine physique ; her sympathies are broad, and her dispo- 
tion genial. She is one of those individuals who love 
to live.'''' 

Helena Barkalow died in 1870, about a year after 
her admission to the bar. She was from Brooklyn, 
N.Y., and died in St. Louis of typhoid fever. The 
members of the bar met in that city, and passed a series 
of resolutions expressive of respect and regret. Major 
Lucien Eaton, in whose law-office Miss Barkalow was 
established for further professional study, testified in 
glowing terms to her excellence as a woman and a 
lawyer. 

At the time Miss Couzins was admitted to the Utah 
bar, as a lawyer of St. Louis, Miss 0. Georgie Snow 
of Deseret was also admitted. She is the daughter of 
the attorney-general of that Territory, and had been 
studying in her father's office. The welcome to the 
bar was general and cordial. A New York paper 
states : " In executive session to-day the Senate con- 
firmed the first woman that has ever been appointed to 
a State office. The lady's name is Josephine Shaw 
Lowell. She was nominated by the governor for the 
office of State commisssioner of charities in the place 
of Commissioner Marshall, and was confirmed on mo- 
tion of Senator Robertson. Mrs. Lowell belongs to a 
distinguished New England family. Her husband — a 
nephew of the poet Lowell — and her only brother 
were killed in the late war. One of her sisters is mar- 
ried to George William Curtis, and another is the wife 
of Gen. Barlow. Mrs. Lowell resides in New York, 
and is a member of the Ladies' Local Board of Chari- 
ties in that city." 



€68 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Miss Maby E. Stevens (a granddaughter of Re>. 
Thomas C. Thatcher, and great-granddaughter of Rev. 
Peter Thatcher, who was pastor of the Brattle-square 
church in Boston at his death) was appointed hy Gov. 
Claflin of Massachusetts a justice of peace, and is one 
of the firm of conveyancers and copyists in Boston, 
Mass., known as E. G. Stevens and daughter ; her law- 
yer father being the other member of the firm. She 
had been previously very efficient in the office of the 
register of deeds. 

" The Woman's Journal " of June 17, 1871, says, 
" Miss Mary Wattle and Mrs. Helen Comb have 
entered into copartnership for the practice of law in 
Leavenworth. This is the first female attempt at law 
in Kansas." 

The same paper on July 29, 1871, says, " Miss Lydia 
S. Hall, a clerk in the Treasury Department at Wash- 
ington, is studying law, and intends to practise at the 
bar in Washington two years from now. Youth will 
not be urged against her admission, for she will then be 
seventy-four years old." 

The same Journal of Aug. 9, 1873, says, " Miss 
Emma Hubbard, daughter of Supt. Hubbard, who 
recently graduated from the law department of the 
University of Michigan, has been elected assistant 
teacher of the Fitchburg High School." 

Rev. Fanny W. Roberts, before her ordination at 
Kittery, Me., was appointed a justice of the peace by 
the governor and council, and was the first woman 
who had authority to solemnize marriages in the State. 
She afterward officiated at the marriage of her own son, 
being thus the first woman to officiate at the marriage 
of a child. 

ELiiA Chapin was appointed register of deeds in 



WOMEN LAWYERS. 669 

Gratiot Co., Mich., and Frances Charles in Oxford 
Co., Maine. 

"The Woman's Journal" of May 26, 1872, says, 
" Miss Annette Contse of Tiffin, a graduate of the 
classical course in Heidelberg College, and who studied 
law one year, has made application to the governor of 
Ohio for a commission as notary public. Her apphca- 
tion was referred to the attorney-general, who ex- 
pressed the opinion that under the constitution and 
laws of the State such commission could not be issued 
to a female." 

Also, " In the city of Washington, where a few years 
ago colored women were bought and sold under sanc- 
tion of law, a woman of African descent has been ad- 
mitted to practise at the bar of the Supreme Court of the 
District of Columbia. Miss (.harlotte E. Ray, who 
has the honor of being the first lady lawyer in Wash- 
ington, is a graduate of the Law College of Howard 
University, and is said to be a dusky mulatto, possesses 
quite an intelligent countenance." She doubtless has 
also a fine mind, and deserves success. 

" The Woman's Journal " of Oct. 22, 1870, says, 
*' Miss Frances A. Rutherford, M.D., has filed her 
acceptance of the office of City Physician in Grand 
Rapids, Mich., and taken the obligation administered 
by a female notary public. Miss Julia Moffinbury, 
and entered upon the discharge of her duties. Grand 
Rapids is a city of sixteen thousand inhabitants." 

Also, under date of Feb. 19, 1870, " In Illinois, Mrs. 
Amella. Hobbs has been elected a justice of the peace 
for Jersey Landing Township, by a majority of twenty- 
six votes. This is the first woman elected to office in 
Illinois." Miss Lizzie Bubt was appointed register 
of deeds in Kansas. 



670 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Mrs. Myra Bradwell of Chicago is the able editor 
of " The Legal News," and when burned out in the 
great fire was not discouraged, but issued it every 
week, though at first of abridged dimensions. She is 
the wife of a judge, and found her marriage vow, what 
it ought not to have been, a hindrance to her being 
admitted to the bar, though amply qualified. 

A daughter of Judge and Mrs. Bradwell has recently 
been admitted to the bar. 

Belva a. Lockwood, neS Bennett, was born at 
Royalton, N.Y., Oct. 24, 1830. She was a fine student^ 
and early became a teacher. At eighteen she married 
Mr. U. H. McNall, a young farmer. He died, lea\ing 
her with one daughter at the age of twenty-two. She 
began to teach again, and finally entered Genesee Wes- 
leyan College. 

" She appKed herself with so much assiduity, that at 
the end of the first year she had exceeded her own 
expectations, and found her name entered on the list 
of juniors. At the close of the following term she was 
again promoted to the senior class, from which she 
graduated with honor, June 27, 1857. Four days 
before her graduation, she was elected almost unani- 
mously, over fifteen competitors, preceptress of the 
Lockport Union School, the central high school of the 
city; and this without her solicitation. It was a com- 
pliment paid her by friends who had known the strug- 
gle of her youth, and her determined effort to rise above 
her position. 

" She accepted this situation reluctantly, at the ear- 
nest request of Pres. Cummings, who represented it to 
her as a duty. She had previously determined to 
make the West her field of labor, whither her parents 
had removed, taking with them her little daughter,. 



WOMEN LAWYERS. 671 

whom she had not seen for two years. To stop short 
of this cost a severe struggle between maternal love 
and duty. At the close of the summer term, however, 
she was permitted to visit her family, and to clasp her 
child, now seven years of age, to her bosom. She 
remained in this school for four years, preparing in the 
meantime her daughter for the junior department, and 
taking her sister through the entire seminary course. 

" At the breaking out of the war in 1861, many of 
the older young men of the school volunteered in the 
service. A mass meeting of the women of the city was 
called, which was very largely attended, and a society 
of all the churches formed, of which Mrs. B. A. McNaE 
was made president. Accustomed to organize and 
arrange into classes hundreds of young women, she was 
not long in arranging into committoes this mass of 
earnest, generous womanhood ; and next day Ringue- 
berg Hall was like one vast beehive in cutting, basting, 
and stitching all the belongings and accoutrements of 
the soldier. It was not long before that gallant regi- 
ment, the Twenty-eighth New York, were clothed, fed, 
and sheltered by the women of Lockport. Many of 
them sleep in honored soldiers' graves ; some still live 
with honorable scars and a proud record. 

" Mrs. McNaU continued president of this Associa- 
tion until she lefj the city in September, having 
resigned her too arduous duties to accept the position 
of preceptress in the Gainesville Female Seminary, in 
Wyoming County, N.Y. The school building was soon 
afterward burned, and she remained in this quiet little 
puritanic town but one year ; but during her stay con- 
ducted two large Bible-classes, one of adults in the 
church and one of young women in the school, and 
conducted a weekly prayer-meeting, besides her routine 



672 WOMEN OP THE CENTTJBY. 

of school duties. The monotony of her life here was 
varied by long walks in the woods with the girls of the 
school, in search of new specimens of plants ; and among 
her writings at this time we find ' Reminiscences of 
Silver Lake,' ' The Falls at Portage,' and ' Chestnutting 
on the Banks of the Genesee.' She afterward opened 
a school in Hornellsville, N.Y., assisted by other teach- 
ers ; but finding the society uncongenial, and the school, 
though large, paying but poorly, she, at the earnest 
solicitation of friends, was persuaded to remove to 
Owego, N.Y. She here purchased of Judge Parker the 
Pumpelley estate, situated on the banks of the Susque- 
hanna, where that beautiful river makes one of its most 
graceful curves, and opened a seminary for young 
ladies. Here, absorbed in educational and religious 
pursuits, she remained until after the assassination of 
Pres. Lincoln. She was elected lady superintendent 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church sabbath school, and 
was sent as a delegate to the State sabbath school asso- 
ciation, which met in Syracuse in 1865. 

" Constantly impressed with the idea that it was her 
duty to teach, because she had qualified herself for that 
profession, she opened a school for young ladies in 
Union League Hall, Oct. 8, 1864, and with the assist- 
ance of her daughter and a competent music teacher, 
conducted a very flourishing school until her marriage 
with Dr. E. Lockwood in March, 1868. Previous to 
this she had conceived the idea of visiting Europe ; and 
without counting the cost of stemming public opinion 
and the conventionalities of society, appMed to the 
Department of State to be sent as consul to Ghent, thai 
ofl&ce being then vacant. She carefully prepared her- 
self for the examination, being familiar with the lan- 
guages, especially the French ; re-read international 



WOMEN LAWYERS. 673 

law and the Constitution, and gave special attention to 
the Consular Manual. But it is not always brains or 
culture that fill offices, but the more special qualifica- 
tion of sex. Disappointed in her application, she turned 
her attention to the acquisition of the Spanish language. 
The year following her marriage, nearly twenty years 
from the birth of her first child, a daughter, Jessie, was 
born to her. This child was a wellspring of delight, — 
a living sunbeam in the house to both her and her hus- 
band. But alas for human hopes ! she died at the age 
of eighteen months, after having endeared herself to all 
who knew her. 

"After this severe blow, — finding consolation only 
in severe mental exertion, — she resolved to pursue the 
study of law, and regularly applied for admission to 
Columbia College, hardly dreaming that so reasonable 
an application would be denied. Dr. George W. Sam- 
son, then president, replied to her by letter that it was 
deemed by the faculty and College Board that 'her 
presence would distract the attention of the students,' 
and declined to admit her, after having invited her to 
the opening lectures. The next year the National 
University Law Class was formed ; and in connection 
with it a class for ladies was opened, fifteen entering 
their names." 

She was afterward graduated, and admitted to the 
bar. 

Mrs. M. M. Rickbr, who was admitted to the bar in 
the District of Columbia in May last, is said to have 
passed the best examination among seventeen applicants, 
all men but herself. She was especially well versed ii 
the law of real property, a branch usually deemed to be 
a little above the feminine practitioner. 

Mks. Judith Ellen Foster should be mentioned ae 



674 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

among the lawyers who have shown woman's power to 
plead successfully. She was among those speakers in 
the temperance campaign who secured victory for prohi- 
bition in Iowa in 1882. 

Miss Frances E. Willard gives a fine sketch of the 
lawyer, Mrs. Judith Ellen Foster, in " Our Union," 
for September, 1881, from which the following facts are 
learned : — 

She is the daughter of Rev. Jotham Horton, a Metho- 
dist clergj^man, born in Boston in 1789, and of a Cape 
Cod mother, who was a descendant of the Revolutionary 
General Warren. Her father was a very Boanerges, but, 
says Miss Willard, " Mrs. Foster's mother was quite a dif- 
ferent type, the daughter of a sea-captain, reared in the 
quiet of a New England farm ; she never met the world 
till called to stand beside this fiery champion of the 
Cross. Beautiful in face and form, and graceful in man- 
ner, she was the ideal complement of her husband. 
When Judith (for I can but call her thus, believing that 
the Iowa liquor traffic shall yet turn out to be her Hol- 
ofernes) was not quite seven years old, she lost this 
lovely mother. Born at Lowell, Mass., November 3, 
1840, motherless at seven, and an orphan at twelve years 
of age, Judith Ellen's short life had already compre- 
hended the most significant vicissitudes, when her eldest 
sister, Mrs. Pierce, wife of a wealthy business man of 
Boston, received the young girl into her home and di- 
rected her education, first in the public schools of Boston, 
then at Charlestown Female Seminary, and last at the 
Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, Lima, N. Y. Her musical 
education was carried on in Boston, under the best 
teachers. After leaving school she taught briefly, but at 
twenty years of age (1860) she was married to a promis 
ing young merchant of that city. 

" Concerning this painful episode in her history, the fol- 




MKS. JUDITH ELLEN EUbTEK. 



WOMEN LAWYERS. 677 

lowing facts are furnislied by a friend : ' This union, 
desired and approved by mutual friends, promist^d naught 
but joy and blessedness. But clouds soon gathered, and 
after years of poverty and toil and wanderings to and 
fro, and vain attempts to cover up and bear the shame 
that came because she bore his name, nothing was left of 
this sad marriage but two children for her to love and 
rear. In the home of a brother she put on widow's 
weeds, sadder far than those that come at death.' 

" Having secured a divorce, she was married to Hon. 
E. C. Foster, who is a prominent lavryer and politician 
of Iowa, a life-long temperance man and earnest, work- 
ing Christian. 

" She read law first for his entertainment, and after- 
wards by his suggestion and under his supervision she 
pursued a systematic course of legal study with, howevfer, 
no thought of admission to the bar. She read, with hev- 
babies about her, and instead of amusing herself with 
fashion plates or fiction, such learned tomes as Black- 
stone and Kent, Bishop and Story. She never had an 
ambition for public speaking or public life. Although 
reared in the Methodist Church she had never, until 
about the time of the crusade, heard a woman preach oi 
lecture, but when that trumpet blast resounded, she, in 
common with her sisters, responded to the call, and 
lifted up her voice in protest against the iniquity of the 
drink traffic. Her acceptance with the people just at 
the time when she had completed her legal studies 
seemed a providential indication, and her husband said, 
' If you can talk before an audience you could before a 
court or jury,' and he insisted on her being examined 
for admission to the bar. Prior to this time she had 
prepared pleadings and written arguments for the courts, 
but without formal admission she could not personally 
appear. She was examined, admitted, and took the oath 



678 WOALEN OF THE CENTLTRl. 

to ' support the Constitution and the laws. This tri- 
umph won the approval of friends and the increased 
hatred of the liquor party, who knew it meant not only 
warfare upon the temperance platform, but in the legal 
forum also. The night of the day on which she was 
admitted to practice, saw her home in Clinton, Iowa, in 
flames. There was little doubt that the fire was kindlf^d 
by two liquor sellers whom Mr. Foster had prosecuted, 
and who had juHt returned from the county jail. Mrs. 
Foster was the first woman admitted to practice in the 
State Supreme Court. She has recently defended a 
woman under sentence of death, and after a ten days' 
trial, in which our lady lawyer made the closing argu- 
ment, the verdict of the jury was modified to imprison- 
ment for life. Mrs. P^)ster enjoys the absolute confidence 
and support of her husband in her legal and temperance 
work. He was its instigator, and more than any other 
rejoices in it. 

" Mrs. Foster has lost two little girls. Two sons re- 
main, one of whom is a student in the Northwestern 
University at Evanston, 111., and another in the grammar 
school at Clinton, Iowa. In her own home Mrs. Fos- 
ter is universally honored, and for her beloved Iowa she 
has grandly wrought from the beginning until now, when, 
more by her exertions than those of any other individual, 
the Constitutional Amendment has been placed before 
the people. Mrs. Foster's life since the crusade of 1874 
is part and parcel of the Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union. She has never been absent from one of our 
national conventions ; and her quick brain, ready and 
pointed utterance, and rare knowledge of parliamentary 
forms have added incalculably to the success of these 
Qfreat meetings. There is not a State at the North in 
which our cause is not to-day more powerful than it 
would have been but for her logic and her eloquence. 



WOMEN LAWYERS. 679 

Whether making her great two-hours' argument for the 
Constitutional Amendment, as she did night after night 
for successive months in the Northwest, or following the 
intricacies of debate in a convention, conducting a prayer 
meeting between the sessions, leading the music of an 
out-door meeting, answering Dr. Crosby at Tremont 
Temple, Boston, pleading for woman's ballot in Iowa, or 
for prohibition in Washington; whether playing with 
her boys at home, reading Plato in the cars, preaching 
the gospel from a dry-goods box on the street corner of 
her own town, or speaking in the great tabernacle at 
Chautauqua, Mi-s. Foster is always witty, wise, and kind, 
and thorough mistress of the situation. Her husband's 
heart doth safely trust in her, and her boys glory in a 
mother who cannot only say with Cornelia of Rome, 
' these are my jewels,' but whose great heart reaches out 
to restore to the rifled casket of many another woman's 
home, whence strong drink has stolen them, these gems 
of priceless cost. Best of all, she loves the Lord Jesua 
Christ, and above her chief joy, desires and labors to 
build up His Kingdom on the earth." 

The mention of Rev. Dr. Samson's name affords an 
admirable opportunity of telling the wise and witty 
course of one brave anti-slavery Christian woman of 
the century, Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Herrick, a native 
of Beverly, Mass., and now in Amherst, N.H. The pro- 
slavery D.D., who was a slave-owner also it is believed, 
was occupying the pulpit of the Baptist church in 
Beverly, on exchange with the pastor. For a long time 
there had been an anti-slavery prayer-meeting observed 
by some of the members. Mrs. Herrick wi-ote the 
notice ; and the doctor was, after several attempts to 
dodge the matter, obliged to read the notice of a meet- 
ing to "pray for God's image in bonds." The ill grace 



680 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

with which the tacit reproof was received may be 
imagined, and also the scarcely repressed mirth of the 
anti-slavery women of that ever faithful church. 

The list of lawyers may be incomplete, but probably 
it will never be less. As the years roll on, women law- 
yers will be as numerous as women physicians, and as 
successful. Many a girl is in our public schools to-day 
who will become, in her degree, a Portia. 




CHAPTER XXII. 



WOMEN JOURNALISTS. 

Caroline A. Soiile — Emma IMolloy — Pauline W. Davis — Jane G. 
Swisslielm — Amelia Bloomer, and others. 

" Words are things ; and a small drop of ink, 
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces 
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think." 

Byron. 

*' They that handle the pen of the writer." — Judges v. 14. 



YERY many women are journalists and reporters in 
our land. Some have been exceedingly success- 
ful as editors ; and no more sprightly and acceptable 
writers have been connected with the newspapers of 
the day, since the days when Margaret Fuller wrote for 
" The Tribune," than the women who are or have been 
connected with our best papers. One of these toiling 
benefactors with the pen is known to children far and 
wide as " Aunt Carra." 

" Caeoline a. Soule (neS White) was born in 



682 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Albauy, N.Y., Sept. 3, 1824. She was the third child 
in a family of six, three of whom died in infancy. On 
her father's side she is of English descent ; on her 
mother's of Holland and French, her maternal gr nd- 
mother being a pure Knickerbocker, and her maternal 
grandfather a pure Frenchman. At the time of her 
birth her father was a Universalist, her mother a mem 
ber of the Dutch Reformed Church ; and Caroline A. 
was christened in the latter church. Her mother, how- 
ever, becoming a Universalist very soon after, the little 
girl was brought up entirely in the Universalist faith. 

" The last six years of her school life were spent at the 
Albany Female Academy, then in its palmiest days, 
and admirably presided over by Alonzo Crittenton, and 
numbering among its professors E. N. Hosford, now of 
Cambridge University. She was graduated in July, 
1841, with high honors, receiving one of the three gold 
medals given as prizes to the graduating class for the 
best English essays. Her subject was, ' The Benevo 
lence of God not fully demonstrated without the aid of 
revelation.' 

" In April, 1842, she became principal of the female 
department of the Clinton Liberal Institute, Clinton, 
Oneida Co., N.Y. 

''In September of the same year, Rev. H. B. Soule, 
then pastor of the First Universalist Church in Troy, 
removed to Clinton, becoming principal of the male 
department of the institute. The acquaintance, begiu 
while they were residents of the neighboring cities, 
Albany and Troy, ripened into affection, the result of 
which was the ceremony of marriage on the 28th of 
August, 1843, at which time Mr. Soule was pastor 
of the First Universalist Church in Utica. In May, 
1844, they removed to Boston, Mass., Mr. Soule becom- 



WOMEN JOURNALISTS. 683 

Ing the colleague of the venerable Hosea Ballou. In 
June, 1845, they removed to Gloucester, Mass., assum- 
ing charge of the parish to which John Murray had 
formerly preached. The climate not agreeing with Mr. 
Soule, they removed in May, 1846, to Hartford, Conn., 
the birthplace of the father of Mrs. Soule. In April, 
1861, the health of Mr. Soule requiring country life, 
they removed to Granby, Conn., where, although fulfill- 
ing the duties of pastor to the Universalist parish, he 
devoted hours formerly given to study to out-door 
exercise. In the autumn of the same year, with per- 
fectly restored health, he contemplated a wider field 
of usefidness, and on the 30th of December removed to 
Lyous, Wayne Co., N.Y., to become pastor of a newly 
organized parish, his family remaining in Granby. On 
the 29th of January, 1852, Mr. Soule died suddenly at 
Lyous, of small-pox. Mrs. Soule was thus left a widow, 
without a note of warning, her husband having been 
dead and buried five days ere the letter announcing 
his decease came to hand. She was a widow with five 
children, three sons and two daughters, — the eldest 
seven, the youngest one year of age. She was left 
with the customary pittance of ministers' widows, — a 
library of a few hundred volumes, and three hundred 
dollars in bank. 

" But she was not long idle. In her girlhood she had 
written a few articles for the newspapers ; and during 
her wedded life, at one time assisted her husband in 
editing the ' Connecticut Odd Fellow,' a weekly paper 
published in Hartford, Conn.; and had contributed 
several tales to the ' Hartford Times,' and a few -to 
Universalist papers. And she now looked to her pen 
for means to provide for her fatherless household. 

" Two months after her husband's death, she com- 



684 WOMEN OP THE CENTURY. 

menoed writing the memoir of his life, which she put 
to press in July of the same year, 1852. It was favora- 
bly received by the denomination, and has become one 
of its standard biographies. The following winter she 
became a professional story-writer ; contributing to the 
few story-papers then published in the United States, 
and also being a regular contributor to ' The Ladies' 
Repository,' the oldest ladies' magazine in the country. 
She was also a regular correspondent of all the weekly 
Universalist papers. The second summer of her widow- 
hood she, in addition to the usual dem-ands made 
upon her by her hterary efforts, taught school, walking 
a mile and a half morning and night, and doing all the 
housework and sewing for her family ; and also editing, 
that year and the next, ' The Rose-Bud,' an annual for 
the young. 

" In July, 1853, she removed to Iowa, becoming one of 
the pioneers of Boone County. She remained here 
nearly ten years, enduring not only the ordinary hard- 
ships of an emigrant, but the extraordinary ones 
induced by the commercial crisis of 1857 and by the 
war. Her eldest son was given to her country's needs, 
and died in the army iu 1863, at the tender age of 
seventeen. Notwithstanding all the manual labor that 
devolved on her as a housekeeper, without servants, and 
living mostly in a log cabin, she never for a single 
week neglected her literary labors. She was soon 
made Western editor of ' The Ladies' Repository,' held 
the position during all the years of her residence 
in the West. She continued her story-writing for 
secular papers, and contributed largely to all the new 
literary undertakings of the State : at one time editing 
a country paper through an entire political campaign ; 
but this was done impersonally, and without pa}^ she 



WOMEN JOURNALISTS. 685 

being prompted by her love of right, to do the hard, 
disagreeable work. She also wrote three books, 
' Home Life, or a Peep across the Threshold,' ' The 
Pet of the Settlement,' and ' Wine, or Water ; ' the 
last a temperance story which has since been repub- 
lished in a Western paper as a serial. 

"An affection of the eyes, which threatened blindness, 
obliged her to return to the East'; and from 1864 to 
1868 she accomplished but little literary labor. In 
July of the latter year she issued the first number of 
* The Guiding Star,' a Sunday-school paper, of which 
she was both proprietor and editor, and which paper, 
now in its seventh volume, she still retains as indi- 
vidual property. Since 1867 she has been a resident 
of New York City, spending her days in an office away 
down town, and finding rest at night at ' Content,' her 
unpretending little home in Fordham. Under several 
noms lie plume, she has been a correspondent of the 
different papers of the Universalist denomination, being 
also for several years the editor of the juvenile depart- 
ment of ' The Christian Leader,' and at one time 
editor-in-chief for several months. She has been presi- 
dent of the ' Woman's Centenary Association,' the 
only national organization of women in the Univer- 
salist Church, from its start in 1869 till now, during 
the year 1874 travelling nearly twenty thousand miles 
in its behalf. 

" Her health failing in the winter of 1875, she sailed 
for Europe in May, and remained till October, confin- 
ing her travels to England and Scotland ; and while in 
the latter country preaching several times to Universal- 
ist families, and lecturing on temperance and the 
higher education of woman." 

A Cincinnati paper thus refers to women in journal- 



686 WOMEN OF THE CENTXTRY. 

" The number of women who figure on the metro- 
politan press may no longer be counted. Among the 
daily journals, at least, their name is legion ; and not a 
few of the most influential weeklies owe much of their 
interest to the sprightly characteristics of the feminine 
pen. In this department, if in no other, woman stands 
the acknowledged equal of her masculine contempora- 
ries ; and the only question which affects her advance- 
ment in any branch of the profession is her fitness for 
the duties of that branch. Hence we see Middy 
Morgan, in her coarse boots and short skirts, plod- 
ding through the mire of the city stock-yards as stock 
editor of ' The Times ; ' while the charming little 
widow of a ' Herald ' reporter takes up her husband's 
pen just where he lays it down, and carries out his 
unfinished programme with as much exactitude as if 
she had been all her life accustomed to the work. One 
of the strongest and most indefatigable writers on the 
' Star ' is a Shepard-ess ; and it is said that the only 
redeeming quality in the columns of ' The Sun ' is 
what flows from the modifying quills of two women. 

" Miss Booth, of *• Harper's Bazar,' needs no intro- 
duction. Not only as an editor has her name become 
famihar to the literary world. Mary L. Booth first dis- 
tinguished herself as an historian and a translator, and 
for many years confined herself almost exclusively to 
those two departments ; but since 1867, when she was 
placed at the head of the ' Bazar,' she has contributed 
greatly by her rare taste and discrimination toward 
making that journal one of the most excellent of its 
class. Her yearly salary of four thousand dollars 
attests the high estimate of her services by Harper 
Brothers, though it by no means limits the annual 
income of this industrious woman. Her brain and pen 



WOMEN JOURNALISTS. 687 

are ever busy ; and notwithstandiug her regular news- 
paper duties the work of the translator and chronicler 
still goes on. 

Another well-known name in the same department is 
that of Jennie June, wife of D. G. Croly, managing 
editor of ' The World,' and the controlling spirit in 
* Demorest's Monthly.' Mrs. Croly 's connection with 
the ' New York Press,' probably dates farther back 
than that of any other woman so engaged at present. 
She discovered her literary powers very early in life, 
and readily learned to put them to profitable use ; at a 
time, too, when men the most appreciative and kindly 
disposed were inclined to ridicule the idea of woman's 
fitness for any l)ranch of journalism. She was first 
engaged on ' The Times ; ' but, on the establishment of 
' Demorest's Monthly,' the enterprising proprietors of 
that periodical offered her a larger salary, and enticed 
her away to the sanctum of fashion. There she has 
remained ever since ; and from there have gone forth 
the thousands of manifold letters which have made her 
nom de plume a household name throughout the land. 
This system of correspondence was originated by 
' Jennie June,' and proved to be one of the happy hits of 
her literary career. Beginning, of course, on a small 
scale, she gradually won her way as an authority on 
questions of dress, till before many years nearly every 
prominent journal in the country was glad to boast of 
' Jennie June ' as its fashion contributor ; and to-day 
that branch of her work alone realizes to its projector 
a handsome income. At one time she prepared and 
despatched every one of these letters herself ; but long 
since she delegated that unenviable task to a competent 
clerk, contenting herself with merely dictating the 
form, and afterward appropriating the greenback 
returns, minus a certain percentage. 



688 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

" Scarcely less known than Mrs. C roly^ or less popu- 
lar, is Mary Olemmer Ames of ' The Independent.' 
Mrs. Ames is somewhat more versatile in her talents, 
and has alternately filled almost every department of 
journalism. Besides being an able prose writer, this 
lady is also a poetess ; and of late years some of her 
finest literary efforts have been in a poetic vein. While 
a mere schoolgirl, "M. C. A." began to use her pen as 
press correspondent, making ' The Springfield Repub- 
lican ' her first field of exploit. But at that time she 
wrote at rare intervals, and solely for the ' fun ' of 
seeing her name in print. It was not until a much 
later period that she took up the pen in earnest, and 
her regular connection with the New York press, 
began only in 1865. From that time probably dates 
her introduction to the literary world. As a Washing- 
ton correspondent she became suddenly very popular. 
Her style was tinctured with warmth, discrimination, 
pleasantry, and sound common sense. People learned 
to regard her as reliable as well as entertaining ; and 
'A Woman's Letter from Washington,' was never 
without its complement of admiring readers. For the 
past two years Mrs. Ames has been attached to the 
editorial corps of ' The Independent,' having, in addi- 
tion, a certain amount of regular work on ' The Brook- 
lyn Union.' Her salary is now pwards of five thou- 
sand dollars a year. 

" The only woman employed on the staff of ' The 
New York Herald ' is Mrs. Butts, a brilliant and 
painstaking journalist. The husband of this lady was 
formerly connected with the same sheet ; and, after his 
death, she made application for piece-work, which was 
cheerfully furnished her. Her thoroughness, despatch, 
and unusual intellectuality were the subjects of con- 



WOMEN JOUKNALISTS. 689' 

Btant comment by those whose busmess it is to look out 
for talent ; and the result was an invitation to join the 
staff. In reviewing the past, she says of herself, — 

" ' I thank Heaven that I know how to work. Should 
any thing happen to my literary prospects, I could 
make my living as a dressmaker, milliner, seamstress, 
hoisekeeper, cook, or laundress. I have done my own 
housework, and gloried in it ; have made my husband's 
shirts, and washed and ironed them, not only because 
I could really do them better than a professional laun- 
dress, but in order to eke out a reporter's meagre 
salary.' 

" Mrs. Mary E. Dodge is one of our most successful 
literary workers, and shows what a woman can do in 
literature. She is the daughter of the well-known 
Prof. Mapes, inventor of the fertilizel^, and owns part 
of the latter's farm, two miles from Newark, which is 
under the management of P. T. Quinn, formerly agri- 
cultural editor of ' The Tribune,' and author of sev- 
eral books on farming. Mrs. Dodge has a salary of 
three thousand dollars from ' Hearth and Home,' for 
writing exclusively for that journal. She excels par- 
ticularly as a writer of children's stories, and combines 
accuracy of fact with beauty of style. Her story of 
' Hans Brinker ' shows great care and study, and gives a 
vivid picture of Dutch life and adventure. Mrs. Dodge, 
though the mother of two boys, whom she supports at 
college, is young, handsome, and lively as a girl of 
twenty, and is excellent company." 

The Philadelphia correspondent of " The Wilming- 
ton (Del.) Commercial " says : — 

"' A paragraph in one of our city papers recently 



690 WOMEN OF THE CENTTJEY. 

claimed my attention, referring to women workers on 
the press. I do not speak of literary women in the 
old sense, but of deliberate and genuine newspaper 
workers, who do just as much work as men do, in many 
cases better than men, and nearly always more con- 
scientiously. The account only mentioned ladies con- 
nected with New York papers ; but it will do no harm, 
when the list is revised, to add the name of a Philadel- 
phia writer. I refer to Miss Louise Stockton, the 
literary and musical editor of ' The Morning Post.' 
There is not a man connected with our newspapers 
who writes with more power and ease, who has a finer 
style, and (what is better than style even) who has 
more ideas, than Miss Stockton. On musical matters 
especially (we all have our ' forts,' as A. Ward used 
to say, or what our friends call our fortes, which comes 
to much the same thing) she is not to be approached 
hereabouts, neither do I find her equal among the New 
York critics." 

Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Miss Susan B. 
Anthony were editors and proprietors of the reform 
paper called " The Revolution." In the West " The 
Agitator " was started, and Mrs. Mary A. Liveemoeb 
was connected with it editorally, as she was also with 
her husband's paper " The New Covenant." She was 
afterwards, for two or three years, editor-in-chief of the 
excellent " Woman's Journal," of which Lucy Stone 
and Julia Waed Howe are still editorially connected. 
Mrs. Livermore has done a vast amount of editorial 
work, and Mrs. Howe was formerly connected with " The 
Boston Commonwealth " editorially. Rev. Phebe A. 
Hanafoed was editor for three years of the " Ladies' 
Repository, " a monthly magazine of the Universaliiits, 



WOMEN JOURNALISTS. 691 

published in Boston, and at the same time edited " The 
Myrtle," a sabbath-school paper. She had charge also 
of the children's department in " The Universalist," of 
which paper, and also of " The Universalist Quarterly," 
she read the proof. For many years previous she had 
reported for various papers, and also written editorially, 
book notices, &c. ; and the routine of oflBce-work was 
very familiar to her before she became editor, though, 
doubtless, there was " room for improvement." Mrs. 
Henrietta A. Bingham followed Mrs. Hanaford on 
the " Repository " and " Myrtle," and proved herself an 
able editor. Mrs. Elizabeth M. Bruce is the pres- 
ent editor of the *' Myrtle." Frances Ellen Burr 
has been editorially connected with her brother's^ paper 
in Hartford, and displayed similar genius. Harriet 
N. Austin and Dr. M. Cora Bland have ably edited 
periodicals, literary and hygienic. Sarah L. Joy 
White and Nellie McKay Hutchlnson have shown 
themselves excellent reporters. Both write admirable 
poetry. 

Mrs. EinTLY Lee Sherwood was born in Madison, 
Ind., on March 28, 1829, and was daughter of Monroe 
Wells and Mary Lee. 

Madison is situated on the southern border of In- 
diana, and was once a very brisk business place. It is 
separated from Kentucky by la helle riviere Ohio, 
and surrounded by picturesque hills, and possesses sites 
for many fine views. Her love for nature is rooted in 
her native hills, over which she wandered in search of 
early spring flowers, or to enjoy a fine view of laud- 
scape or a magnificent sunset. 

Her father was an architect and a builder, a man of 
fine conversational powers, and much general intelli- 

1 Hon. Alfred E. Burr. 



€92 



WOMEN OF TELE CENTUKY. 



gence. Both parents were good singers, and the home 
atmosphere was always bookish and music ' 1 ; although 
their style of living was in other respects plain, and 
such as usually characterizes the well-to-do mechanic. 
There were always a plenty of flowers, peaches, cher- 
ries, and grapes, of their own raising. She lost her 
father when she was ten years of age, also her youngest 
brother at the same time, by cholera, leaving her the 
youngest of four children, two brothers and a sister. 
Up to that time her schooling had been conducted at a 
select school, quite celebrated for many years in that 
vicinity, — Mrs. Hunt's, who could boast of having 
helped to educate nearly all the children of Madison, 
at one time or another, and who still lives. When her 
father died, her mother, for economical considerations, 
removed her to the public grammar school, where she 
passed an examination, and entered the high school, 
where she remained until in her sixteenth year, then 
moved to Indianapolis, Ind., to be with her youngest 
brother, who was publishing a Univ^rsalist journal 
" The Herald and Era." Wishing to assist herself 
and family pecuniarily, she was examined for a teacher 
in the public schools, passed ; but, no vacancy occurring 
then, she went into the business office of " The Herald 
and Era," at a salary of eight dollars per month. Her 
duties were to keep books, read proof, write wrappers, 
and arrange copy for the " Family and Youth's Depart- 
ment " of the paper. Here she began to write for 
3hildreu ; also stories. She continued in the oflBce for 
four years, when she left it to be married, Oct. 19, 1859, 
to Henry L. Sherwood, a young attorney just admitted 
to the bar. 

A part of the year 1860 she spent in Madison, Ind., 
with her sister, her husband being away from home in 



WOMEN JOURNALISTS. 693 

pursuit of a settlement. When the war of Rebellion 
occurred, he went in as private, was promoted to 
colonel's staff duty, after which his wife joined him, 
and remained on rebellious territory for over a year ; 
while there, contributed some " war sketches " for In- 
dianapolis papers, also for " Ladies' Repository." 

After the war she spent the first winter in Marietta, 
Ohio, her husband going to Washington, D.C.,on busi- 
ness, formed a partnership, and there they now reside. 
She says of herself, " I was born into a Universalist 
home. Have contributed principally to denominational 
journals, 'Ladies' Repository,' 'Star in the West,' 
' Leader,' and to ' Daily Commercial,' Indianapolis, 
Ind. ; also ' Daily Republican,' same place. Never 
saved any thing I published. Have no scrap-book. 
Have been a voracious reader and student all my life. 
My taste inclines toward ' biography,' or the essay style. 

" Music, painting, geometry, and French have all 
been pursued under private instruction, — don't con- 
aider myself good in either, — but they help to form 
one's taste, to teach one to reason geometrically cor- 
rect, and embellish one's hours of labor with elegant 
sources of relaxation. 

" My disposition is domestic, — my home and family 
the first objects in my regard, although I am not insen- 
sible to the pleasures of a literary life ; and, had I not 
been married, no doubt would have followed my tastes 
for authorship as a profession." Mrs. Sherwood is a 
woman of the century who will be heard from in the 
future, if health allows." 

Emma Molloy, the sprightly wife of an editor, 
and herself editorially connected with an Elkhart, 
Ind., paper, with " The Advance Guard," a temper- 
ance sheet, and with other papers as correspondent and 



694 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

reporter, is one of the live women of the century, 
who through various trials and struggles, borne with 
Christian patience, trust, and fortitude, and overcome 
in the might of real religion, has won a high place 
among speakers for temperance, and workers for the 
press. She was born in South Bend, Ind., July 19, 
1839 She was married to a printer when yoiang, and 
had two children, both of whom, with their father, died, 
but not till she had spent weary years in toiling for 
them. The brave little woman says in a letter to the 
writer, — 

" I returned to my native town broken in health and 
spirits, and again commenced teaching school. My 
own education was acquired in a common country 
school ; and an extensive reading and contact with the 
world have given me what little polish I have since 
acquired. Mr. Molloy becoming interested in me 
through numerous articles which I wrote at this time 
for the ' National Union,' of which he was editor, 
proved a valuable friend. Our friendship rapidly 
ripened into a warm affection, and in the fall of 1868 I 
entered into partnership with him in ' The Union' as 
his wife. Mr. M. was struggling with insufficient 
means to carry on his business, and we were hopelessly 
in debt; but we believed that energy and Industry 
would carry our little ship safely through. I took my 
place at the compositor's stand, and in a short time 
could ' set my galley ' as rapidly as any compositor in 
the office. We worked night and day, hand in hand 
and heart to heart, I doing the main part of the local- 
izing, and my husband the heavy editorials. Country 
editors have a world of little things to do, to which the 
city editor is a stranger ; but I naturally fell into the 
routine of collecting, soliciting, writing, and type-set- 



WOMEN JOURNALISTS. 695 

ting, until I became indispensable to my husband. 1 
think every true woman feels a pride in the thought 
that she is truly a helpmeet ; and I felt great pride in 
my business. We gradually worked out of debt, and, 
having a good opportunity to sell, moved to Cortland, 
N.Y., where we bought ' The Cortland Journal,' and 
'Homer Herald,' both papers being printed in the 
' Cortland ' office. My health not being good in the 
East, however, we again disposed of our office, and, at 
the earnest solicitation of business friends in Elkhart, 
started ' The Daily Observer,' a Republican paper. 
When the Crusade storm first broke upon the North- 
west, I learned for the first time my oratorical powers. 
At a large mass-meeting in my own native town, at 
which my honored friend Schuyler Colfax presided, I 
made my dShut. As I stood before the vast throng, 
all the waves of sorrow, that had gone over me during 
the weary years of my first marriage seemed beating 
upon the shores of feeling ; and living them over again 
enabled me to touch the tender chords of very many 
hearts in the audience. If I have any eloquence, it is 
that born of sorrow and a hard, bitter struggle with 
the world ; and my soul yearns over the vast army of 
helpless women who find the breakers too much for 
their frail little barks. Is it any wonder so many of 
them go down ? At present, added to my work on the 
' Observer,' I am editing the Political Reform Depart- 
ment in ' The Advance Guard,' — the State temper- 
ance organ, published by Hon. J. J. Talbott, the Grand 
Worthy Chief Templar of our State. I have more 
calls to lecture in the temperance field West than I can 
fill ; but there is no money in it, and my literary lec- 
tures pay much better. Next season I expect to 
devote my time to literary lectures." 



i696 WOMEN OF THB CENTURY. 

Success to her in the future, far beyond that of th« 
past I 

Mrs. Hale mentions Mrs. Cabolinb A. Gilman as 
one who edited, in 1832, the first juvenile newspapei 
in the Union. It was called " The Rosebud." Mrs. 
Lydia Mabia Child edited the "Juvenile Miscel- 
lany," and was editorially connected with " The Anti- 
Slavery Standard." For lack of information, and 
space also, the names only of Mrs. Runkle, Sara 
A. Hubbard, Alice Huntley Payne, Margaret 
BUCHA.NAN Sullivan, Annie E. Kerr, Eliza Allen 
Starr, Miss Longstrbet, are here mentioned, with 
the assurance that they are able and industrious jour- 
nalists. 

" The Lowell Offering " was the first magazine in 
America, if not in the world, entirely sustained by 
working-women. " It was the first work written 
entirely by factory girls, and the first magazine or 
journal written exclusively by women in all the 
world," says Rev. Abel C. Thomas. " A volume 
entitled ' Mind Among the Spindles,' being a selection 
from ' The Offering,' was published in England under 
the auspices, I believe, of Harriet Martineau. She, at 
all events, was the prompter of a fine review in " The 
London Athenaeum.' This was early in 1843. The 
compliment was acknowledged by the present of an 
elegantly bound copy of the first and second volumes 
of the new series, with the inscription, ' Harriet 
Martineau, from Harriet Farley, Harriet Curtis, and 
Harriet Lees.' The distinguished authoress said in 
reply, ' It is welcome as a token of kindness and for its 
own value, and, above all, as a proof of sympathy 
between you and me in regard to that subject, the true 
honor and interests of our sex.' " 



WOMEN JOURNALISTS. 697 

There is one editor who 'las passed from earth who 
shall not be foi^otten. From the biographical sketch 
published in the Toledo " Ballot-Box," of which 
Sarah R. L. WriiLiAMS is editor, the following is 
taken, almost as a whole. It was written by Mrs, E. 
C. Stanton : — 

MRS. PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS. 

" Paulina Kellogg was born in Bloomfield, N.Y., 
Aug. 7, 1813, the very day Capt. Hall dehvered up 
the fort at Detroit. Her father was a volunteer in the 
army. 

" Her grandfather, Saxton, was a colonel in the Revo- 
lution, and belonged to Lafayette's staff. 

" Her parents were conservative in all their opin- 
ions, remarkably fine-looking, and sincerely attached 
to each other. Paulina, the third of five children, was 
always thoughtful, sensitive, and delicate. When she 
was about four years old her grandfather bought a 
large tract of land at Cambria, fifteen miles from 
Niagara Falls, where he established homes for all liia 
children. 

" When seven years old, she was adopted by an aunt, 
and moved to Le Roy, N.Y., where she was educate,!. 

" With such ancestry and early experiences, we can 
readily account for Paulina's love of freedom, and cour- 
age in attacking the evils and false customs of society. 

" At the early age of thiiteen Paulina joined the 
Presbyterian Church. . . . 

" She was a religious enthusiast, and in revival sea- 
sons was one of the bright and shining lights in exhor- 
tation and prayer. When she was about fifteen, a dis- 
cussion came up in the church, as to whether women 
should be permitted to speak and pray. Some of the 



698 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

deacons protested against a practice in ordinary times 
that might be tolerated in revival seasons. But the 
women who had discovered their gifts m these periods 
of religious excitement were not easily remanded to 
silence. Thus was the church then as now distracted 
with the troublesome question of ' women's rights.' 

" Sometimes a liberal pastor would accord a latitude 
denied by the elders and deacons. Sometimes a whole 
church would be more liberal than neighboring ones ; 
hence individuals and congregations were continually 
persecuted and arraigned for violation of chiirob dis- 
cipline, and God's law as men interpreted it. 

" On Jan. 12, 1833, being then nineteen years old, 
she married Francis Wright, a merchant of wealth and 
position in Utica, N.Y. 

" They were the moving spirits in the first anti- 
slavery convention ever held in Utica, which was 
broken up by an organized mob, and adjourned to 
Peterboro, the home of Gerrit Smith. Mr. Wright's 
house was surrounded, piazzas and fences torn down, 
and piled up with wood and hay against the house, 
which they evidently intended to burn down. 

" But several ladies who had come to attend the con- 
vention were staying there ; and, as was their custom, 
they had family prayers at the usual hour, in the midst 
of the row. 

" The leaders, peeping through the bli.rt.ds, saw a 
number of women on their knees, in prayer : the sight 
seemed to soften their wrath, and change their pur- 
poses ; for they quietly withdrew, leaving the women 
in undisturbed possession of the house. The attitude 
of the church at this time being strongly pro-slavery, 
they withdrew, as most abolitionists did, from all 
church organizations, and devoted themselves with 



WOMEN JOURNALISTS. 699 

renewed zeal to aiiti slavery, temperance, moral reform, 
and the education of women. 

" In this way they passed twelve happy years togeth- 
er in mutual improvement, and co-operation in every 
good work. 

" Mr. Wright, having a delicate organization and 
great executive ability, was constantly taxing his 
powers of mind and body to the utmost, until at last 
he fell a victim to dyspepsia, which, after a long, wast- 
ing illness of two years, terminated his life. 

" Having improved her leisure hours in the study of 
anatomy and physiology, Mrs. Wright commenced hex 
public work soon after the death of her husband ; he 
having been unfortunate in business, she was thrown 
on her own resources for support. 

" As early as 1844 she began her lectures to women. 
She imported from Paris the first femme modeU that 
was ever brought to this country, which she recently 
presented to ' The Homoeopathic College for Women,' 
in New York. 

"In 1849 she was again married, to Hon. Thomas 
Davis, a man of wealth, position, sound common sense, 
and great nobility of character. He was a member of 
Congress one term, and of the Rhode Island Legisla- 
ture for seven years. 

" For nearly three years Mrs. Davis published ' The 
Una,' almost at her own expense. 

" Though Mrs. Davis had no Living children of her 
own, yet the best elements of motherhood were devel- 
oped in her character. 

" She adopted several sons and daughters, some in 
early infancy, brought them up with tenderness and 
care. Hers is not the mere selfish animal instinct of 
loving its own, but a real love of the many pleasing 



700 WOMEN OF Ti±B CENTURY. 

characteristics of childhood, having- an unusual sympa 
thy and attraction for young people, and great ten- 
derness for the help^less and innocent. Motherless 
children, disappointed youth, and unfortunate women 
have ever found a shelter in her hospitable home. 

" In 1859 Mrs. Davis, being in delicate health, vis- 
ited Europe for the first time, and spent a year travel- 
ling in France, Italy, Austria, and Germany, devoting 
her leisure hours to visiting picture galleries and the 
study of art. On her return home she entered with 
renewed zest into her lifelong work, the education and 
enfranchisement of woman. 

'' Having decided to celebrate the second decade of 
the suffrage movement in this country, Mrs. Davis took 
the entire charge of all the preliminary arrangements, 
the foreign as well as home correspondence, and pub- 
lished a complete report of all the proceedings of the 
convention at her own expense. 

" She gave at the opening session a comprehensive 
review of the individual work accomplished, and the 
many successive steps in progress during the twenty 
years, which makes a very valuable contribution to our 
history. 

" One of Mrs. Davis's favorite ideas, which she has 
often proposed, is a ' Woman's Congress,' to discuss all 
questions relating to our political and social life. 

" There have been two attempts made to realize 
this, both partially successful. 

" Her idea is to have a body of wise, mature women 
meet every year in Washington, at the same time Con- 
gress convenes, to consider the national questions that 
occupy popular thought, and demand prompt action ; 
especially to present them in their moral bearings and 
relations, while our representatives discuss them from 



WOMEN JOURNALISTS. 701" 

A material and statistical point of view, as men usually 
do. 

" Thus only, she thinks, can we ever have the com- 
plete humanitarian idea on these many important ques- 
tions. All legislation must necessarily be fragmentary, 
80 long as one-half the race give it no thought whatso- 
ever. 

" In 1871 she again visited Europe, in company with 
her niece and adopted daughter. She spent two years 
abroad, making extensive travels and many pleasant 
acquaintances, and again devoted herself quite ear- 
nestly to art. 

" She took lessons of Carl Marks in Florence, and 
spent much of her time in Julian's life-school, the only 
one open to women. 

" In Paris she spent hours every day copying in the 
Louvre and Luxembourg. 

" Her house is decorated with many fine copies of 
old paintings and a few of her own creation. 

" Her enthusiasm in both art and reform may seem 
fco some a singular combination ; but, with her view of 
life, it is a natural one. 

" On the 29th of May she sailed for America, and 
reached her home in safety ; but the disease that had 
been threatening her for years (rheumatic gout) began 
to develop itself, until in the autumn she was confined 
to her room, unable at times even to walk. It was 
thus I found her in a large arm-chair, quietly making 
all her preparations for the sunny land, resigned to stay 
or to go, cheerfully to accept the inevitable, whatever 
that might be. She rests in the thought that she has 
done what she could to leave the world better than she 
found it. Sitting at the twilight hour, hand in hand, 
after a long silence, she said, ' How petty the ridicule 



702 WOMEN OF THE OENTUBY. 

and persecution we have passed through, that seemed 
80 grievous at the time, now appear, compared with the 
magnitude of the revolution we have inaugurated 1 ' " 

The distinguished editor of " The Lady's Book," Mrs. 
Sfjah Josepha Hale, is best known by her valuable 
book, " Woman's Record." The reader is referred to 
that for a sketch of the able author. 

Mrs. Abigail Whittlesey Goodbich was for years 
editor of the " Mother's Magazine ; " Mrs. Hiscox and 
Mrs. Clarke as editors of " The Mother's Journal." 
Mrs. Margaret L. Batley edited " The Youth's 
Monthly Visitor." 

Says the " Woman's Journal " for May 27, 1871 : — 

" Mrs. Annie A. E. MaoDowell, late editor of the 
woman's department of the Philadelphia ' Sunday De- 
spatch,' and who is now connected in the same capacity 
with ' The Sunday Republic,' we are informed, was the 
first woman in the United States who published and 
edited a newspaper devoted to the industrial rights of 
woman, the whole business of which was conducted by 
women, who were paid the full prices of the M'.i's 
Typographical Union." 

Mrs. C. M. KiRKLAND was editor of " The Union 
Magazine," afterwards " Sartain's." Mrs. Fowleb, 
(Lydia) and Mrs. Charlotte F. Wells have been 
editorially connected with the " Phrenological Journal," 
of which the latter has now special charge, with able 
assistants. Mrs. Wittenmeyer, Mrs. Johnson, and 
other women, are conducting an ?.ble temperance paper, 
" The Women's Temperance Union," pubhshed in Brook- 
lyn, N.Y., Mrs. Eleanor D. Rockwood has also done 
excellent editorial work. Emma L. Baldwin (now 
deceased) was an able reporter for her brother's pape? 



WOMEN JOURISALISTS. 703 

In Peoria. She is held in loving remembrance by the 
writer. Amelia Bloomer and Jane G. Swisshelm 
have each labored editorially in a manner to deserve 
the gratitude of all women. Biographical sketches of 
them maybe found in the " Woman's Journal." " Mrs. 
Swisshelm started ' The Pittsburgh Saturday Visitor ' 
in January, 1848, using for the purpose the patrimony 
left her by her mother. It had but three subscribers 
when the first number was issued ; but the street was 
blocked for hours by a crowd waiting its appearance, 
and in a short time the circulation reached seven thou- 
sand." Mrs. Swisshelm's life has been one of shadow 
and struggle and triumph, so that she said to Mrs. 
Burleigh, " Oh 1 but it is good to have hved and suf- 
fered and worked, to know that the Lord is over all, 
and that nothing can go wrong with us if only we are 
right." 

Mrs. Bloomer's paper " ' The Lily,' was the first one 
owned and conducted in all its departments by a 
woman, and working in the interests of women." So 
she says herself, and adds, *' ' The Lily ' probably con- 
tains the fullest history extant of the rise and progress 
of the woman's movement for the first six years imme- 
diately succeeding its inauguration." 

Mrs. R. C. Hallowbll has made a grand success in 
editing " The New Century," the woman's paper pub- 
lished at the centennial. " The Woman's Advocate," 
published in Dayton, O., in 1870, was edited in part by 
MmLAM M. Cole and Margaret V. Longley, and 
was a valuable adjunct to the cause. Of course it is 
remembered that Margaret Fuller was one of the 
editors of " The Dial." Laura C. Holloway should 
be mentioned among able reporters and journalists. 
In 1870 Carrie Young commenced the publication of 



704 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

a monthly magazine in San Francisco, which is called 
" The Pacific Journal." " The Balance " was started 
in Chicago in 1871 by Maria Hawley and Mary 
ToMLiN as proprietors and publishers, and a corps of 
editors, consisting of themselves and Mrs. E. Mackway 
and Dr. Odelia Blinn. This hst is incomplete, doubt- 
less, as other women, Emily Huntington Millee 
and others, have been connected with periodicals, and 
scarcely a juvenile one, especially, succeeds without the 
editorial aid of cultured women. Mrs. Beli.a French 
was on the editorial staff of " The St. Paul Pioneer " 
in 1871. Mrs. A. J. Duniway is the able editor of an 
Oregon paper, doing valiant service for woman's cause. 
The future will see more instead of fewer women 
journalists, and they will be acknowledged yet more 
widely as a power for good in the land. 




EMILY HUNTINGTON MILLER. 




CHAPTER XXIII. 



WOMEN PRINTERS. 



The Misses Franklin — Sarah Goddard — Mary Katherine Goddard — 
Penelope Russell — Augusta A. Miner — Anna E. Briggs — Harriet 
G. Miller — The Turner Sisters — The Bazin Sisters, and others. 



' A blessing on the printer's art! 
Books are the mentors of the heart." 

Mks. Hale. 



" Oh that my words were now written ! oh that they were printed in a book ! ' 
Job xix. 23. 



IT is no wonder that " the art preservative of all 
arts " has been termed a " divine art," since it pre- 
serves for us so many high thoughts and blessed words, 
and is the means of spreading abroad so much light and 
joy. " Even the Christian religion, with its divine 
power unaided by the press, was but a light under a 
bushel ; and though ever guarded from extinction by the 
hand that placed it upon earth, it gave but a taper 



708 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBY. 

flame to the world it was sent to illumine and bless." 
But, when the art of printing was discovered, the world 
began to be filled with light ; and woman has done her 
part bravely in the good work. Even among the early 
printers and editors in America, were women. 

" 'Anne Frajstklin.' — The first newspaper printed in 
Rhode Island was at Newport, in 1732. James Frank- 
fin, a brother of the doctor, was the publisher. He 
died soon after, and his widow continued the business 
several years. She was printer to the colony, supplied 
blanks to the public offices, published pamphlets, &c. 
' The Newport Mercury,' which is now regularly 
issued, grew out of this printing office in 1768, and is 
the oldest paper in the country. In 1745 Mrs. Franklin 
printed for the government an edition of the laws, con- 
taining three hundred and forty pages. She was aided 
in her office by her two daughters. They were correct 
and quick compositors, and very sensible women. A 
servant of the house usually worked at the press. 
George Dexter, an early settler of Providence, usually 
worked for her when she had a large job, or an almanac 
to get out." 

Anne Franklin did most of her work before our first 
century began, but the influence she exerted was not 
lost. From the admirable address of James F. Bab- 
cock, formerly editor of " The New Haven Palladium," 
at the editorial convention held in Middletown on the 
centennial aniversary of the origin of the newspaper 
press in Connecticut, some interesting facts are culled. 
He says, " From the time of the first American news- 
paper, in 1704, to the appearance of the first in Con- 
necticut in 1788, there were seventy-eight newspapers 
In uhe colonies, one-half of which were suspended 
before 1775. Of the whole number printed, sixteen 



WOMEN PRLNTBRS. 709 

were conducted by ladies^ fourteen of whom were the 
firm and undaunted champions of liberty and equal 
rights. . . . Mrs. Franklin was not only a printer of 
laws, newspapers, and almanacs, but of calicoes and 
linens, which she advertised she would stamp in figures 
in ' very lively and desirable colors, and without the 
offensive smell which commonly attends linen printed 
here.' The fashionable ladies of 1745, must have folt 
under very great obligations to Mrs. Franklin for giving 
them so choice an article for their wardrobe. 

Mrs. Sarah Goddard was a printer at Providence, in 
1767, — a lady of good education, and managed her 
newspaper, "The Gazette," with ability. She after- 
wards connected herself in business with John Carter 
under the firm of Sarah Goddard «& Co. She died in 
Philadelphia in 1770. " The Boston News Letter," the 
first newspaper in America, was conducted during some 
part of the Revolutionary War by Mrs. Margaret Drar 
per. When Boston was besieged by the English, all 
the newspapers but her's were suspended. She left the 
country with her friends, and the British government 
settled a pension upon her. Mrs. Cornelia Brad- 
ford, widow of Andrew Bradford, who died in 1772, 
was for a number of years in business in Philadelphia, 
and, what is quite remarkable, retired with a com- 
petency. Mrs. Jane Aitken, also of Philadelphia, 
succeeded her father in 1802, and gained considerable 
reputation from the productions of her press. Mrs. 
Zerger carried on her husband's business after his 
death, and conducted " The New York Journal " with 
great ability until 1748. Her husband was a f^\&'^- 
tempered man, ana was frequently in prison for libel 
prosecutions. She is represented as having possessed a 
lamb-like docility. 



710 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Mrs. Mary Holt lost her husband, and succeeded to 
his place as publisher of " The New York Journal," 
soon after which she was re-appointed State printer. 
That journal, it is remarked, did powerful service in the 
republican cause in the Revolution of 1776. 

Anne Catherine Greene, in 1767, succeeded her 
husband in publishing " The Maryland Gazette " at 
Annapolis, the first paper printed in that colony. She 
executed the Colony printing. Mrs. Mary Katherine 
GoDDARD was for a long period in charge of '' The 
Maryland Journal." That paper was established by her 
brother, William Goddard of Rhode Island. He was 
several times mobbed for his writings, and finally went 
back to Providence. His sister Mary took up his pen, 
and conducted the paper for eight years. She was also 
for a period, or until 1784, the postmaster of the city. 
She was as unsparing in her writings as her brother ; 
but the fact that she wore calico instead of broadcloth 
saved her from the violence to which her brother 
was subjected. She was the daughter-in-law of Sarah 
Goddard, heretofore spoken of as the firm of Sarah 
Goddard & Co. 

Clementine Bird succeeded her husband in " The 
Virginia Gazette," and died in 1775, 

Mrs. Elizabeth Timothee published " The Charles- 
ton Gazette, " in South Carolina, in 1773. Her 
daughter-in-law, a widow, carried on the paper after 
the war. She was appointed printer to the State, and 
held the ofiice until 1792. Mary Crouch, widow of 
Charles Crouch, born in Rhode Island, assisted her hus- 
band in the publication of a paper in Charleston, in 
opposition to the Stamp Act ; and after his death she 
contir ued it till 1780, when she took her printing ma- 
terials to Salem, Mass., and established a paper there, 



WOMEN PBINTEBS. 711 

and couducted it with much success. PeneLiOpb Rus- 
sell, a very enterprising woman, succeeded her hus- 
band in publishing and editing " The Censor," at Berlin, 
in 1771. She used to set up her own type, and put 
together the editorial " leaders " from the type-case, 
without the previous aid of paper, pen, and ink. Ah, 
there were women in those days I " The Hartford 
Courant," long one of the best conducted papers in 
New England, was for two years published by Mrs. 
Watson. Her husband died in 1777. She was taken 
from her editorial chair in 1779 by a new husband. 

So much for the printer women of the olden time, 
according to Mr. Babcock. 

It is believed that women of later times are not in- 
ferior. A few examples will here be given. 

Mrs. A. J. DuNiwAY of Portland, Oregon, is not 
only an editor, but a practical printer, as is also Mrs. 
Emma Molloy of Elkhart, Ind. Mrs. Duniway first 
earned a sewing-machine, then, by sewing, earned press 
and type. " In the mean while she reared a house full 
of boys to print her paper, at the head of which she is 
now a power in Oregon. Lucy Stone says of her, ' Mrs. 
Duniway makes an excellent paper, which we always 
look for and value among our exchanges. The fresh- 
ness of the great North-west is in it, and it always 
respects itself.' It is entitled " The New North-West." 

" Battle Creek, Mich., can boast of two damsels, the 
Misses Elisabeth and Lydia Taylor, who have for 
five years been employed as compositors in the oflBce of 
the "Journal," of that place. They have made from 
eight to twenty dollars per week, have supported a 
widowed mother, have kept house handsomely, have 
bought a piano, have taken music-lessons, have given 
one hundred dollars to the Baptist Church, and have 
saved twelve hundred dollars." 



712 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

" The Paterson (N.J.) Guardian " speaks thuF of 
" victorious female printers " : — 

" A Cincinnati press states, that, three years ago, a 
poor orphan girl applied, and was admitted to set type 
for that paper. She worked two years, during which 
time she earned, besides her board, about two hundred 
dollars ; and, availing herself of the facilities which 
the printing-office afforded, acquired a good education. 
She is now an associate editor of a popular paper, and 
is engaged to be married to one of the smartest lawyers 
in Ohio. Such a girl is bound to shine, and eclipse 
tens of thousands who are educated in the lap of 
luxury, and taught all the ' accomplishments ' of the 
boarding-school, Such a wife will be a jewel to her 
husband, an ornament to society, and an honor to her 
sex and her country. 

" We can tell a truthful tale of the sort which will 
beat that easily. ' The Paterson Guardian ' office is 
the first office in New Jersey where females were suc- 
cessfully employed at type-setting. One young lady, 
who was our forewoman for years, had entire charge of 
the paper, was paid during her stay with us over five 
thousand dollars, as nearly as we can get at the amount 
from our books. She also had entire charge of the 
columns, selections, &c., and was judge of all matter 
to be inserted during three years and six months at a 
time, when the regular editor was absent ; and we 
never knew her to err in any respect. We cannot say, 
with the above, that she is engaged to a promising 
young man : she is married to one of the finest young 
men in the city, and one doing a first-class business. 
Another young lady left our office to take a position 
in New York • and she is now what is called ' make-up 



WOMEN PBLNTBBS. 713 

In an oflSce in New York, at twenty-five dollars per 
week. Some time ago two sisters left the oflBce to take 
positions on a New York paper, to whom we had paid 
nearly seven thousand dollars for type-setting. Of 
course such hands are the best ; but we have very good 
hands always in the office. We have very generally, 
however, found this to be the rule in regard to female 
compositors. They do not care to earn beyond a cer- 
tain amount ; and, when that figure is reached, they 
seem to have all the money they require, and are 
perfectly careless of any thing extra. They may not 
advance so far in rapid type-setting ; but it is a fact, 
that generally girls will get ahead in three weeks to 
where a boy will take six to attain. In an office they 
are more agreeable, less disposed to go from place to 
place, and, as a general thing, are more reliable than 
male compositors. To be sure, they must have their 
own ; but they seldom want more than is right. Our 
entire newspaper is the work of young ladies, and 
every type is set by them, advertisements and all ; and 
the ' make-up ' is a young girl ; and we have no fore- 
man in the newspaper rooms, a young lady acting in 
that capacity." 

While editor of the " Ladies' Repository," the writei 
had ample opportunity to make the acquaintance of 
the young women who were the compositors (one of 
whom, Mabgabet Wellenqton, was competent to act 
as foreman in emergency, and did so), and found them 
successful as printers, and amiable and high-toned as 
women. Some of them were well-educated, some 
even accomplished ; some had genius for writing ; 
and it is a well-known fact, that one of the first 
writers for that magazine, in years gone by (Mrs. 
Chaklottb Jabauld) was a compositor there when 



714 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

she first wrote for the public. The Bazin sisters, 
"Tillib" and " Hattie," the Turner sisters, Eliza 
and Emily, Anna E. Bkiggs, Olive Allen, Mary 
Allen, and others who were printers in Boston, wiD 
always be regarded with the respect and affection they 
richly deserve. The number of women now engaged 
in type-setting is very large. Miss Callie White (in 
1871) was elected by the Jackson (Mias.) Typographical 
Union as a delegate to represent their association in the 
International Union, held in Baltimore. " The Woman's 
Journal " of April 13, 1872, says, '* Mrs. Augusta A. 
Miller is a compositor at South Bend, Ind. She 
learned to set type in her father's office in Angola, 
when only thirteen years of age ; and a proof taken 
the other day of nine thousand ems, having but two 
typographical errors, proves that ' the coming woman ' 
may be a compositor without stepping out of her 
sphere.' " 

"Mrs. Harriet Granger Miller, job-printer in 
Springfield Mass., was awarded the only premium 
given in New England (so far as we know) for job- 
printing by the judges of the Centennial Exposition, 
where she exhibited specimens of her work. 

" Mrs. Miller is a native of Westminster, Ver., where 
she lived until her marriage with Mr. Joseph Miller, who, 
was a native of Springfield, and established a new job- 
printing office there in 1858, and successfully carried 
on the business some ten years, when he began to 
develop a nervous disease of the brain, that, after five 
years of untold horrors to himself and friends, resulted 
fatally and tragically in the death of a suicide. Up to 
this time Mrs. Miller had no more knowledge of job- 
printing than any one who has occasionally visited a 
printing-office ; being in exceedingly delicate health 



WOMEN PRINTERS. 715 

from a serions and settled affection of the lungs and 
throat, and unable to speak aloud without great exer- 
tion. She had been ordered by her physician to leave 
Springfield immediately if she wished to save her life, 
and had with their only child been visiting friends in 
the country for three weeks, when, on the morning of 
the day she was expecting to see her husband, a tele- 
gram was brought her announcing his sudden death. 

*' Four days later found her in the printing-office, try- 
ing to solve the problem of how to keep the ' wolf ' 
outside the door, with an insolvent estate, a broken- 
down business, a heavily mortgaged house, and neither 
health nor capital to work with ; nothing better sug- 
gesting itself, she determined to take up the business 
her husband had left, assuming the indebtedness : so, 
keeping the boy already there to do the lesser work, 
she secured the services of an old printer who had long 
ago retired from a printer's life, but with true friendh- 
ness consenting to come to her aid until she could do 
better. In a little more than a year she succeeded in 
mastering every department of the work done in her 
office, and dispensing with the services of her kind 
friend and helper. She has continued to do the work 
ever since, with the aid of only one workman, who has 
not finished learning the business, occasionally hiring 
an extra hand for press-work when there has been 
sufficient business to make it advisable. The work is 
all done without steam, on two Gordon presses, an 
eighth, and half medium, and a Franklin hand -press. 
During the annual vacations of her workman, Mrs. 
Miller has performed not only her usual duties, but also 
the entire routine, from opening the office in the morn- 
ing, to washing the rollers and presses and closing the 
office at night. The Massasoit House daily ' BiU of 



716 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Fare ' has been printed in this office every day (except 
Sundays, that being done Saturday) for eighteen years. 

*' For three years Mrs Miller has been struggling under 
the disadvantages of ill health, hard times, small capi- 
tal, and close competition ; but she has persevered in 
her endeavors to carry on the business, and earn an 
honorable livehhood, and is still cheerfully laboring on, 
hoping for better times and brighter prospects." 

The list might be extended, but must close here, 
with a benediction on all those who use the composing- 
stick as a sceptre of power. 

It may not be amiss to close with the statement that 
" it was a lady who orig-inated the use of printing in 
Japan. The Empress Shiyantoku, good soul, in pursu- 
ance of a vow, directed in the year 764 that a million of 
small wooden pagodas should be distributed among the 
Buddhist temples and monasteries of the empire, and 
that each should contain a dharani out of the Buddhist 
Vimala nirhhassa Sutra. The Sanskrit text of the dhor 
rani was to be printed in the Chinese character on slips 
of paper about eighteen inches loDg by two inches wide, 
80 as to admit their being easily rolled up and inserted 
into the hollow interiors of the pagodas. Many of these 
slips are still preserved in the monastery of Hofu-riu-zhi, 
in Yamato, and fac-si miles of some of them are to be 
found in Japanese antiquarian works. Connoisseurs are 
divided in opinion as to whether the plates from which 
these impressions were taken were of metal or of wood 
bat the majority hold that they were of metal." 




CHAPTER XXIV. 



WOMEN LIBRARIANS. 



Lorenza Haynes — Elizabeth C. Todd — Maria Mitchell — Sarah J. 
Barnard, &c. 

♦' Come let me make a sunny realm around thee 

Of thought and beauty ! Here are books and flowers, 
With spells to loose the fetters which hath bound thee, 
The ravelled evil of this world's feverish hours.'' 

Mrs. Heman». 

" Of making many books there is no end." — Eccles. xii. 12. 



HAVING read with great interest the newspaper 
accounts of the librarians' conference in Philadel- 
phia in October of the centennial year, the writer was 
pleased by the fact that some ladies were there, but 
regretted that no special mention was made of the capa- 
bility of some women for that position, which requires 
a love for books, some scholarship, a desire for order 
and executive capacity, with no little patience and dis- 
cernment of character. The Philadelphia paper, after 

717 



718 WOMEN OF THE CENTUBT. 

speaking of the men librarians gathered in the confer- 
ence, said, — 

" There was also a fair representation of the lady 
librarians from different sections of the country pres 
ent. The following registered their names : Miss S 
Louisa Rich, Hastings Library, Missouri ; Miss Eliz 
ABBTH E. Rule and Miss Louisa Matthews, Lynn 
Mass. ; Miss E. F. Whitney, Concord, Mass. ; Mrs 
Cornelia Olmsted, Wadsworth Library, Geneseo 
N.Y., and Miss Fanny J. McCulloch, of the Birchard 
Library, Fremont, Ohio. 

Mr. John William Wallace, in his excellent address 
of welcome, thus referred to the librarian as he or she 
should ever be, and as some librarians (Hke John L. 
Sibley, and Frederic Vinton and others, who have helped 
the writer when in search for information, are) : — 

" Gentlemen, a good librarian has ever been a valua- 
ble minister to letters. He has always stood between 
the world of authors and the world of readers, intro- 
ducing the habitants of one sphere to the habitants of 
the other ; interpreting often obscurities where the 
fault is with authors, imparting often intelligence where 
the fault is with readers. This, his ancient title, he 
still possesses. But in this day and for the future he 
is called to new offices and to higher distinctions. His 
profession belongs to the sciences. He requires some 
of the finest faculties of mind. He takes his rank 
with philosophers." 

All this may be said of some women librarians ; 
especially if they are in some special sense beside 
votaries of science, as was Mabia Mitchell, the 
astronomer who was librarian of the Nantucket Athe- 
naeum for twenty years. No one could be more faithful 
than she was. Her place has ever since been occupied 



WOMEN LIBRARIANS. 719 

by a woman, Sarah J. Barnard, who has served so 
acceptably as to fill the place for many years. 

Mrs. Parola Haskell was appointed State Libra- 
rian in Tennessee in 1872. In the town of Waltham, 
Mass., Miss Lorenza Hatnes, now a preacher, was 
for many years in charge of the town library, and per- 
formed her duties with fidelity and success. She was 
one of the most efficient librarians, and performed an 
incredible amount of work, for which the salary was 
hardly a fitting recompense. In New Haven Eliza- 
beth C. Todd has for years served faithfully as libra- 
rian of the Young Men's Institute, now located in the 
old State House. In the town of Brewster, Mass., and 
in many other New England towns, women have 
served with entire success. Miss Mattie H. Apple- 
ton (now Mrs. Brown) was an efficient librarian in 
Reading, Mass., for several years. Having prepared 
catalogues for three sabbath schools and for several 
private libraries, the writer is ready to acknowledge 
effort required in the larger Ubraries of towns, and 
bespeaks for every librarian an adequate salary and 
sufficient help in the details of book-delivery. Libra- 
ries are great educators, and should be established in 
eveiy town and city ; and a fair share of them should 
be put into the hands of women librarians, to whom 
research is delightful, and with whom there is no such 
word as " fail." 




CHAPTER XXV. 



WOMEN AGRICULTURISTS. 



M. Louise Thomas — The Sisters of Dutchess Couiity — Lucilla 
Tracy — Miss Morgan — Mary Wilson, &c. 

" How blest the farmer's simple life ! 
How pure the joy it yields ! 
Far from the world's tempestuous strife, 
Free 'mid the sceuted fields ! " 



Plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them. 



C. W. Everest. 
■ Jer. xxix. 5. 



"TTTHY should not women be farmers, or ship- 
V V captains, if they will ? That they can be both 
has been proved already. In 1872 mention was made 
by the press of two sisters, Laura and Electa Fuller, 
who Uve on the east shore of the Canandaigua Lake, 
who are now over sixty years old, own farms, and since 
early womanhood have cultivated them with their own 
hands. It is not always necessary that women should do 
this. They may work by proxy, as men who own farms 



WOMEN AGRICULTURISTS. 721 

do, and still be regarded as agriculturists. Rev. Robert 
Collyer states the following : — 

A WOMAN FARMER. 

" Nine years ago there was an old man living in 
Dutchess County, N.Y., who owned a farm of aboui 
three hundred acres, and had three children, a son and 
two daughters. He was an old man then, and past 
work, and his son managed the farm. Then the old 
man made a proposition. He could not live long, and 
wanted to divide the property in this manner : he 
would divide it into two halves ; give the son one half, 
and the other half to the two daughters. Then the 
son made a proposition. The property was worth from 
eleven thousand to twelve thousand dollars ; and he said 
he would sell his share to his sisters for five thousand 
dollars, on condition that they would take care of the 
old man as long as he lived. One of these sisters, 
a small, delicate person, acts for the other, who is 
sometlung of an invalid. They agreed to the propo- 
sition ; and then the first thing this small person did 
when she got hold of the land, and found herself in debt 
five thousand doUars, was to run in debt four thousand 
dollai-8 more, with which she bought new stock and 
implements, put her buildings and fences into good 
repair, and got every thing as a woman Hkes to see it. 
That was nine years ago. Her father lived five years, 
and got to be so helpless that she had to wash his face 
for him and shave him, and wait on him hand and foot. 
She fell sick herself on the strain, and could attend to 
nothing for some months. But now that whole nine- 
thousand-dollar debt is paid; the farm is in better 
condition than it was when she took it ; and she has got 
BO forehanded that she is able to go round visiting hei 



722 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

friends, and was sitting among you in this church the 
first Sunday after vacation ; and I suppose you would 
not know her if she were here to-night from the lady 
who seldom goes outside her own parlor. She has had 
the whole oversight of the place, sometimes hiring 
a foreman to work with the men when she needed one, 
but never giving up her own plan of ruLng and guiding 
the land. One day, when she was not far on with her 
work, her brother came to see how things were going, — 
not indifferent, I suppose, to his share of the property 
still invested. He saw some stone wall that was just 
done, and said, ' You must not build a wall like 
that ; the land will not afford it.' — ' What do you 
think that wall cost ? ' she said. The brother named 
the price it would have cost him. The sister brought 
out her book, showed him every item, and it was not 
quite half as much as he had said it cost. But then he 
found, that while the woman did not touch the wall 
with the tip of her finger, she inspired and directed the 
men, so that they built as they built at the walls of 
Jerusalem in the days of Ezra the scribe ; and so the 
wall was finished. All this she has done, and has raised 
a poor lad beside, taught him farming, started him on 
a farm of his own in Missouri, and is now looking out 
for another ' 

"Among the self-reliant women in Greeley, Col., is 
Mrs. WiLBEB, a slight person, and formerly a school- 
teacher, who this season (1873) has rigged up a gang- 
plough and sowed eighteen acres of wheat." 

Mrs. Ellen S. Tupper is well known as a successful 
bee-culturist. A newspaper account of this lady is as 
follows : — 



WOMEN AGRIOULTUitI»i«. 723 

MBS. TUPPKB's HISTOBY. 

" No woman in Iowa has borne a higher reputation for 
probity of character than Mrs. Tupper. She was oom 
at Providence, R.I., in 1822, and was the daughter of 
Noah Smith, for fifteen years First Assistant Secretary 
of the United States Senate. Her mother was a sis- 
ter of Henry Wheaton, the well known author of a 
treatise on International Law. Mrs. Tupper was given 
all the educational advantages which wealth could pur- 
chase, and at an early age won local distinction as a 
magazine essayist. In 1843 she married Allen Tupper, 
a wealthy lumber merchant at Houlton, Me. Soon 
after his health failed, and his business and wealth 
passed away. In 1851 the family went West, and 
located in Washington County. Up to this time Mrs. 
Tupper did not know what it was to labor for even 
a day. Necessity stared them in the face. Several 
smaU children must be cared for as well as an invalid 
husband. She engaged to teach a school ; and taking 
her babe with her on horseback, daily she went to her 
school, and attended to her household affairs when out 
of school. She soon brought the school to her own 
house, and thus supported her family until 1857, when 
she turned her attention to bee-culture. In 1872 she 
removed to Des Moines, where she has since resided. 
In the mean time her business has extended to every 
State in the Union. Her labors have been severe and 
onerous. Her correspondence was suflficient to absorb 
most of her time ; yet she personally packed and at- 
tended to all her shipments, besides editing one or two 
oee-journals, and v/iiting for several others, and fre- 
quently going abroad to lecture. 

" She was also one of the regular lecturers at the 



724 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

Agricultural College. She has reared three daughters 
to womanhood, one of whom is the wife of a lawyer, 
and is the able and eloquent pastor of a church in 
Colorado ; another is a teacher in Marshalltown ; while 
another, in Des Moines, is engaged in raising and breed- 
ing fancy poultry, and is well known throughout the 
State. She has one son, about fourteen years old, and 
a younger daughter. Her husband is now teaching 
school at State Centre. By her own hard labor she has 
kept hei family together, and educated her children, 
fitting them for any position in society. 

" Two years ago she broke down in both body and 
mind from overwork, and passed through a long time of 
sickness and nervous prostration.' ' After this sickness her 
mind appeared to be affected, leading to embarrassments 
In business, so that at present she is not active in her 
chosen sphere ; but the cloud will doubtless pass away, 
and in the clearer Ught of restored health she will 
resume her efforts, and be successful as before. All 
true women sympathite with her daughters in this 
aflfliction. 

" Mrs. Majby Wilson owns a farm of a hundred and 
eighty acres near Reed's Corner, Ontario County, N.Y. ; 
and, although seventy-two years old, has gathered all 
her grain (in 1871) without help. She was found by 
an interviewer pitching off a load of wheat, and a day 
or two ago had been mowing. She swings a scythe 
and handles a pitchfork with the ease of a man in his 
prime." 

Lastly, and chiefly, the name of M. Louise Thomab 
Is given as one who has demonstrated the fact that 
women can be successful ; and the writer ventures tc 



WOMJfiN AGRICULTURISTS. 725 

insert extracts from a cheerful, characteristic letter from 
this noble woman : — 

" I'Acoirr, Philadelphia, Dec. 31, 1875. 

*' My dear Friend^ — ' The old year lies a dying,' and 
the guns are firing over it, and the bells are hanging 
all ready to ' ring out the old, ring in the new ; ' and 
all the world stands ready to cry, The king is dead, 
live the king,' as J write to you. Yours of the 29th is 
received ; and, without the least affectation, I should 
be glad to give you the particulars of my life if I could 
think of one worthy of a place in your book, or in any 
book. But I have never done any thing, nor been 
any thing, but what ought to have been and done 
much better by reason of my blessings and opportu- 
nities ; and I dare not myself write either, lest I should 
either underrate the one, or overrate the other. 

" I think my ruling traits are industry and a love of 
systematic arrangement in all work, study, or recrea- 
tion, and a close sympathy for all animal and vegetable 
nature, as well as for humanity. Botany was among 
my earliest studies ; and long before I could read I 
loved the honey-bees that have since become my most 
familiar friends : and yet I never lived a week at a 
time in the country, until a dozen years ago, when, by 
reason of the feeble health of my husband, we were 
obliged to leave the city, in the hope of prolonging hia 
Hfe. 

" We have a farm of twenty acres. All that is done 
upon it is altogether and entirely under my direction 
and my personal superintendence. There is no mystery 
and no hardship in it. I have never found any hin- 
drances that a man might not have found, and I think 
not quite so many ; for the whole round of farm-life is 
a pleasure to me. 



726 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

" The are no sex prejudices in the natural forces of 
the universe. The earth yields her increase just the 
same to woman as to man if the conditions of cidtiva- 
tion are the same ; and the grain or produce raised by 
one commands just the same price in the market as 
that raised by another, according to quality. In any 
thing I have ever bought or sold or hired, I have 
never felt that my neighbors have any greater or any 
less advantage than I have had. 

" My little herd of pui-e-blooded Alderney cattle are 
equal to any in the country in beauty and milking 
qualities, and my butter brings the top price in the 
Philadelphia market. Last year I made over seven 
hundred pounds from four cows, besides using consid- 
erable cream for ice-cream. 

"I have over a hundred pure Brahma fowls, Guinea 
fowls, turkeys, ducks, &c. ; and in my garden all the 
choice small fruits. A young pear orchard, planted 
with my own hands, is now in full bearing, and must 
increase in profit for many years to come. 

" I have brought up thirteen children, — boys and 
girls, — and have tried to teach them habits of useful- 
ness and honesty. Among them were Germans, Scotch, 
Negroes, Indians, Americans. 

" Five of them I took from the Colored Orphan Asy- 
lum, 143 A Street, New York, at different times. It 
is one of the best institutions in the country. 

" I have been enabled to carry on the entire duties 
pertaining to the pubhcation of tracts, by the expe- 
rience gained in early life, my father, Hon. S. N. 
Palmer, having been editor and publisher of a paper ; 
80 that types were among my earliest toys and play- 
things, and the reading of proof, and the details of a 
printing-office, familiar things to me at a very eariy 



WOMEN AGRICULTURISTS. 727 

*ge. You know the amount of work in the tract pub- 
lication. I have attended to the stereotyping and the 
printing, bought the paper, read the proofs, packed, 
directed, and mailed them all, with occasional clerical 
assistance, and have kept the books. 

" I have never, in a single instance, been made to 
feel that my sex was either a hindrance or a help in 
this work. . . . 

" The lady I told you about in the sugar camp is 
the wife of Rev. L. F. Porter, Conneautville, Penn., 
one of our ministers. 

" I think l^er name is Charlotte, but I am not sure. 
I am sure she would be glad to receive a letter from 
you. For a number of years they lived near Brooklyn, 
Susquehanna Co., Penn. She has never been regularly 
ordained (by man) ; but she has preached with great 
power and acceptance for many years in the north- 
eastern part of the State. 

" The story of the sugar-camp was told to me by 
Obadiah Bailey, an intelligent and leading member of 
the church at Brooklyn. 

" The services of Mrs. Porter were desired at a 
funeral a few miles away, and Brother Bailey went to 
her house to carry the message. 

*' She was not at home ; and he was told, that, to find 
her, he would have to go out into the sugar-camp, 
where she was engaged in gathering the maple sap, 
and making it into sugar. 

"It was night then, but his errand admitted no 
delay. So he drove as far as he could follow the 
wagon-path ; then, as it was quite dark, he hitched his 
horse to a tree, and walked on as best he could by the 
starlight. 

*' Presently he heard, on the still, frosty air, a 



'"^S WOMEN OF THB CEa«fTURY. 

vroman'a voice singing a hymn ol praise to God ; and 
very soon the camp-fire came in sight. Standing still, 
he says he watched the scene for some minutes, listen- 
ing to the hymn in this strange and lonely place, the 
snow covering the ground, the stars over head, the 
fire burning, and Mrs. Porter singing as she passed 
from place to place, in the work in which she was 
engaged, with no human being near. 

" She and her husband had hired the camp, and they 
took turns in the duty of making the sugar, — the one 
generally sleeping in a leaf-covered hut close by, while 
the other kept watch of the kettles containing the sap 
and sugar. Upon this occasion Mr. Porter had not 
yet appeared, to take his midnight watch, and she was 
alone. 

" The handsome sum realized by the sale of theii 
sugar in the spring proved the success of their under- 
taking. 

" I have not done justice to the story, but I have 
given you the outline. I wish I could give you a better 
idea of her character. She is a strong, good woman, — 
often supplies her husband's pulpit, and is liked quite 
as well as he ; and he is above the average in point of 
eloquence. 

" And now about your book. When will it be 
ready ? Have you the name of Lydia R.. Bailey, the 
woman printer of whom I told at Syracuse ? She was 
for many years the city printer of Philadelphia. Her 
niece was my aunt by marriage. 

" Have you Harriet Livermore, — one of the singular 
women of the last century, and the early part of this ? 
" Yours truly, 

" M. L. Thomas.' 



WOMEN AGRICULTURISTS. 729 

Mrs. Thomas has been requested by a letter in 
" The Woman's Journal," signed by Phebe A. Hana- 
ford, Ellen E. Miles, Ada C. Bowles, Caroline A. 
Soule, Elizabeth K. Churchill, and Lucretia Mott^, to 
prepare a volume in regard to farming, which may help 
other women to the peace and independence of a suc- 
cessful agriculturist ; and she has promised to do so if 
leisure is afforded. May the publication occur soon, 
that many women may thereby be blessed I 

I The iuitials of five namea make the word " Peace," and are rightly 
followed by the honored name of the preacher, Lucretia Mott. " A good 
omen for the book," says " The Woman's JoumaL" 




CHAPTER XXVI. 



WOMEN HISTOEIANS. 



Hannah Adams 



C. Alice Baker — Martha S. Lande — Clarissa 
Butler, and others. 



' The classic days, those mothers of romance, 
That roused a nation for a woman's glance, 
The age of mystery with its hoarded power. 
That girt the tyrant in his storied tower. 
Have passed and faded like a dream of youth, 
And riper eras ask for history's truth." O. W. Holmes. 



" Bring the book of the record of the Chronicles." — Esther vi. 1. 

SINCE the days of Hannah Adams, it has never 
been denied, in this country, that women can be 
historians. Her " History of the Jews " proved that a 
woman can be interested in the details of historic 
events, and portray them Avell. Emma Willard and 
her sister Phelps also taught, to their pupils at least, 
the same lesson. Mrs. Martha J. Lamb is teaching it 
to this generation through her " History of New York. ' 



WOAIEN HISTOKIANS. 731 

The press tells us that " Mrs. M. J. Lamb, an mtelli- 
gent lady, and a ready and practised writer, who has 
earned the distinction of being the first woman admitted 
to the active membership of the New York Historical 
Society, has been at work for the past sixteen years 
preparing a history of the Empire City, derived not 
only from the standard sources, but also from family 
archives of correspondence, memoranda, and papers of 
various kinds to which she has been granted access, 
among those whose fathers and mothers were closely 
identified with the early days of the city, particularly 
during the Revolutionary period, and the earlier part of 
this century. This book tells the whole story, from the 
time of Henry Hudson and the ' Half-Moon ' down to 
the present day." ' 

Mrs. Martha Joanna Lamb's birthplace was Plain- 
field, Mass. She was the daughter of Alvin and Lucinda 
Vinton NasH, and the granddaughter of Jacob and Jo- 
anna Reade Nash. Sae was named for her grandmother, 
Joanna Reade, who descended from the Reades of North- 
umberland and Marcia in England. Mrs. Lamb's early 
jtars were notable for her love of mathematics and of 
composition. She had written numerous articles and 
poems before she was ten years old ; her first published 
article appeared about the age of thirteen, in the " Hamp- 
shire Gazette." She wrote occasional fugitive articles 
and poems, but it was not until 1866 that she devoted 
herself exclusively to literary production. She has since 
that time written, not only her famous " History of the 
City of New York," in two imperial volumes of sixteen 
hundred pages, but "The Homes of America," two 
Qovels, — " Spicy " and the " Broken Pitcher," — ten 



732 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

books for children, a small book of poems, numerous no- 
tabl*^ illustrated articles ; as, for instance, " The Coast 
Survey," "The State Department," "The Life-Saving 
Service," etc., for " Harper's Magazine," and has con- 
tributed articles and editorials to various publications on 
almost every topic under the sun. 

She is now engaged in preparing a supplementary vol- 
ume to her great history, to be entitled '"■ New York 
Biography," speaking of prominent people and events in 
that city during the past fifty years. Mrs. Lamb is also 
preparing a volume on the " Historic Manors of New 
York," which will be of great interest. These books are 
original and graphic in style, as charming as Prescott 
and Macaulay, and yet Mrs. Lamb imitates no one, but 
gives accurate history in glowing pictures, and shows that 
woman can be a successful historian. ■ 

Here is a paragraph of special interest to women, 
from Mrs. Lamb's article on Newark, N.J., published in 
" Harper's," alluding to. the fact of women voting in 
the state of New Jersey early in the century. She 
says : — 

" Widows and single women were entitled by the 
laws of New Jersey to vote in all elections. In 1807 
the Legislature authorized an election to settle the 
location of the Essex County court-house. Newark 
was intensely excited, for Elizabeth had been for some 
time growing arrogant. Public meetings were he d in 
all parts of the county, and the air had a bitter taste. 
The children in the schools were emplo}'ed for days in 
writing tickets for the contest. Personal safety was in 
danger whenever a good word chanced to be spoken for 
Elizabeth. Two Newark gentlemen drove to Elizabeth 
in a gig on private business, and were received with a 
bucket of tar. The day of the election was fair. 



WOMEN HISTORIANS. 733 

Every horse, carriage, and cart in the place was in 
requisition. Every man and every woman old enough 
and big enough (age was a minor consideration), or 
who expected to grow old enougJi and big enough, to 
vote was promptly at the polls. Vehicles were going 
constantly to and from the different polls, and every 
person voted at every poll. Married women voted as 
well as single women. Three sisters, the youngest aged 
fifteen, changed their dresses and their names, and 
voted six times each. Two of them are still living, 
and reside in Newark. Men and boys put on women's 
clothes, in order to duplicate their votes. Never was 
there more reckless proceeding. Newark won the 
court-house, and in the evening illuminated herself, even 
to the tops of her steeples ; cannons thimdered and 
bellowed, and all the tar and apple barrels which could 
be gathered in for miles around were consumed by 
fire." 

Mrs. Abby Sage Richardson, who has been a suc- 
cessful writer in various departments of literatuie, has 
recently turned her attention to history. She is the 
author of a volume entitled " The History of our 
Country," published by Hurd & Houghton, and has 
also delivered a series of lectures in Boston on histori- 
cal subjects, which were received with favor by critical 
audiences, and were highly commended by the press. 

For lack of further space, let it be only added here, 
that C. Alice Baker and Clarissa Butler should 
be numbered with historians. Phebe A. Hanaford has 
written several slight historical sketches of churches, 
one of which has been published in pamphlet form, the 
others in newspapers. There is no reason why women 
should not engage in historical research, and publish 
the result of their labors. Accuracy of statement and 



734 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

attention to details, which may present graphic pictures, 
may be expected of them, as of their brothers, and 
America may yet have woman rivals for her Prescott, 
her Motley and her Bancroft. 




CHAPTER XXVII. 



WOMEN TRAVELLERS. 



Whalers' Wives- 



Mary D. Wallis — Lucinda H. Stone — Julia Ward 
Howe, &c. 



" And waiting, I \vill trust the love 
Tliat guards me tlirough the darkest hours ; 
And though my feet oft press the thorns 
That lie concealed 'neath sweetest flowers, 
I know His hand will surely guide 
My footsteps safe beyond the tide." 

Ellen E. Miles. 

" In journeyings often, in perils of waters, ... in perils by the heathen, m 
perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea." —2 Cor. xi. 26. 



MANY a woman as well as many a man has felt the 
force of the prophet Samuel's words when he 
said to Saul, " The Lord sent thee on a journey," as 
they have looked back upon their lives, and perceived 
how, sometimes by ways they could not have foreseen, 
they have been led to travel far from home into foreign 
lands, and how the hand of God sustained them in all 
their wanderings by sea and land. 

Among the women who have travelled far by sea and 
land, are the wives of those brave men who have gone 
forth from Nantucket and other seaports in search of 

735 



'ob WOMEN or THE CENTUBT. 

the mighty whale. One of them was brought to mind 
by a recent paragraph in " The Nantucket Mirror: " — 

" The late Mr. Henry Clark, whose remains were 
brought to this place last week for interment, was born 
at the island of Tahiti. His mother, who still survives, 
was we believe, the first Nantucket lady who accom- 
panied her husband on a whaUng voyage to the Pacific 
Ocean. The voyage was performed in the ship ' Envoy,' 
then belonging to Providence, R.I." 

Were the names of the women who have been brave 
enough to dare the arctic cold and the dangers of the 
deep, for the sake of the companionship of their hus- 
bands, and possibly with a desire to see foreign lands, 
to be given here, the list would be very long, and would 
present the names of some of the best women earth 
has ever known. Pitcairn's Island holds the dear re- 
mains of one such woman, Mrs. Eliza Palmer, whose 
memory is blessed. Women at the present day are 
travellers in our own and foreign lands almost aa much 
as men are ; but formerly only those women whose com- 
panions were seafaring men, or men whose official 
duties called them abroad, were wont to cross the 
ocean, or travel far from their native land. 

It is said that " Mrs. Jane A. Eames of Concord, 
N.H., has presented to the high school of that city a large 
and valuable collection of minerals and curiosities gath- 
ered by her in her various travels in Europe, Asia, 
Africa, and America. Among these is a complete set of 
Austrian minerals as well as of Swiss, the first bought 
of the state geologist of Austria ; the second got in the 
neighborhood of Mont Blanc." " The New York Tri- 
bune " thus describes the victoiy of a woman over 
shipwreck and yellow fever combined. "The brig 
' Abbie Clifford ' of Stockton, Me., from Pernambuco 



WOMEN TRAVELLERS. 737 

March 27, 1872, with a cargo of sugar, is now at 
quarantine. On the second day out a seaman was 
taken sick with yellow fever, and died April 1. Another 
of the crew died April 9, and the steward had died 
before leaving port. Capt. Clifford, the officers, and 
the majority of the crew, were prostrated by the fever ; 
and, after the death of the first mate, Mrs. Clifford, the 
wife of the captain, took sole command, navigated the 
vessel, and brought her safely to New York. Above 
Cape Hatteras the brig encountered a N.E. gale of five 
days' duration, which split the sails into ribbons, and 
carried several spars overboard ; but the woman cap- 
tain was fully equal to the emergency. Mrs. Clifford 
has been at sea several years with her husband, and 
has made many of the calculations during that time. 
She has a thorough mathematical education, and be- 
Ueves herself competent to sail any craft afloat. She is 
of slender build, about twenty-five years old, and is 
unassuming and ladylike in manner." 

Maby D. Wallis accompanied her sea-captain hus- 
band to the Feegee Islands, and wrote an interesting 
narrative of her sojourn there, entitled " Life in 
Feegee." ^ Julla. Ward Howe has travelled exten- 
sively in the Old World ; and her books telling of 
classic scenes, or of unfamiliar, lovely spots in the 
tropic islands of the sea, are full of thrilling interest. 

Mrs. LucrNDA H. Stone has been travelling in 
Europe for several years, with pupils, and the world 
may yet hear from this true friend of woman. Our 
libraries are enriched with the writings of Mrs. Whit- 
ney, Mrs. Sowe, Mrs. Stowe, Miss Alcott, and other 

1 She went afterward on another voyage, and visited New Caledonia, 
Her account of that voyage has been edited, since her death, by th« 
writer and Is now ready for the press. 



738 WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 

women who have travelled, and thus gamed the knowl- 
edge they impart to others. 

Song and stories come from the journeyings of these 
women ; and since they travel not in vain, but enrich 
our libraries on their return, we can but wish their 
travels may never be less. The writer closes this brief 
mention of these women who go abroad, with praise for 
their courage and enterprise, and the expression of her 
own longing desire to follow in the footsteps of some 
of them to the beauties and sublimities of Alpine 
scenery, and the glories of classic lands. 

" I cannot throw my staff aside, 
Or wholly quell the hope divine, 
That one delight awaits me yet, 
A pilgrimage to Palestine." 

Mention among artists should have been made of 
Miss LATHBTJRYof Orange, N.J., whose genius is shown 
in exquisite drawings, at once beautiful and sugges- 
tive ; and more should have been said of Margabet 
Foley. "A life-size medallion, comprising an admirable 
likeness of William CuUeu Bryant, carved by Miss Mar- 
garet Foley, an American sculptor now in Rome, and 
enclosed in a massive frame under glass, will hence- 
forth be one of the most striking ornaments of the 
walls of Prof. Tyler's recitation rooms at Amherst 
College." Miss Foley has achieved great success as a 
sculptor since she went abroad. 

In the chapter on Women Missionaries should have 
been mentioned Miss Maria A. West, whose " Ro- 
mance of Missions " has been published in New York. 

We desire to preserve here the testimony of two 
men whose opinions are of value. First, in regard to 
the co-education of the sexes. Prof. Hosmer of Anti- 



WOMEI^ TRAVELLERS. 739 

och College, in " Old and New," sets forth his views 
upon the subject. He says, — 

" I am sure that young men and women study better 
for being brought together in recitation : there is an 
honorable emulation, a natural incentive in each to do 
the best. Neither would seem to the other dull or 
incapable ; the young women would show that they 
can do well, even in philosophy and mathematics ; and 
the young men must look to their laurels. Then in 
regard to the spirit and tone of life : I am sure it is 
better for the presence of both sexes ; roughness is 
repressed, and thought and feeling are purer, gentler, 
and more humane. No doubt there must be vigilant 
supervision, and limits to familiarity ; some indiscretion 
must be expected and provided for ; the sober maturi- 
ties of autumn are not to be looked for amidst the buds 
and flowers of spring ; but with a careful supervision 
we have had very few wilful departures from pro- 
priety. Through these results I have come to strong 
faith in the co-education of the sexes. Indeed, what 
infidelity to doubt it I God has placed sons and daugh- 
ters in the same homes to be brought up ; and men and 
women are made to live together in the world. Who 
may presume to say, that from sixteen to twenty-five 
years of age, the most formative period of human life, 
the young men and women must be separated, become 
monks and nuns in their school-time, and then revive as 
best they can their thwarted, smothered sympathies ? " 

Edward Everett Hale says of the education of 
women : " I have for many years seen the work of the 
young women at Antioch College, who are trained 
actually in the same classes with the young men who 
study there. I have little doubt that any of the gradu- 
ates of that college would pass, with distinction, the 



'i-^0 WOMEN OF THE X)ENTURY. 

advanced Cambridge examination for women. This is 
not because Antioch College offers more studies, or a 
wider ' curriculum ' as they caU it, than our high 
schools. It is because it does what it pretends to do 
thoroughly. The young woman is turned back on her 
course at the end of a year if she cannot pass her 
annual examinations, just as a Cambridge sophomore or 
junior is. I do not believe, that, in practice, the well- 
educated woman needs to go through the same studies, 
precisely, with a well-educated man. But I do believe 
that what she learns she needs to know thoroughly. It 
is of no great consequence whether a girl has studied 
this thing or that thing, that thing or this thing. But, 
whether she study this thing or that thing, it is impor- 
tant that she should study to the bottom, and learn it 
thoroughly well, so far as she learns it at all. And, if 
1 had a young friend who was preparing herself to be 
a teacher of boys, in the things boys learn in going to 
college, I should send her to Antioch College to pre- 
pare herself. The merit of the Cambridge plan will be 
that people will, sooner or later, find the advantage of 
thoroughness. It need not compel the women to study 
things they do not need or do not want to learn. But 
gradually it will train the schools to teach well what 
they teach at all." 

" The Boston Journal " says of women students, — 
" The understood but not always discussed question 
with respect to advances in female education has refer- 
ence to their influence upon the delicacy of the sex. 
It is felt that if women should become great scholars, 
able thinkers, and well-informed persons generally, and 
yet in the process should lose their crowning grace, — 
' that delicacy which is to woman what color is to the 
flower, that nameless something which poets strive tc 



WOMEN TRAVELLERS. 741 

describe but cannot, that something which attracts us 
to woman,' then the advantages would be attained at 
too great a cost. We are borrowing from the language 
of Pres. Angell of Michigan University, who gives his 
own conclusive experience of the last three years in 
the co-education of the sexes. 

" ' If we were to make masculine women or blue- 
stockings,' he says, ' then, for one, let me have the priv- 
ilege of resigning my position.' But he declares with 
the utmost plainness and emphasis, knowing the great 
concern on this point which is in many minds, and was 
once in his own, that he sees ' no possible tendency in 
this direction.' His testimony will be credited with 
the weight it deserves. And yet we find in our last 
foreign files a remarkable order emanating from the 
Russian Government, which seems to militate against 
Pres. Angell's conclusion. For some time it seems 
women students from Russia have been allowed to 
resort to the University of Zurich, the number at 
present being one hundred and eight. ' Very unfavora- 
ble reports have reached the Governiaent relative to 
the conduct of those young women,' says the docu- 
ment in question. They have become ardent politi- 
cians, belonging to secret societies and adopting the 
most advanced democratic sentiments. Some of them 
pass back and forth in Russia, taking with them incen- 
diary letters and proclamations. Others, says the offi- 
cial document, allow themselves to be deluded by 
communistic free-love theories, and act in utter forget 
fulness of the fundamental principles of morality and 
decorum ; and yet these women must sooner or later 
come back to Russia as wives, mothers, and teachers ; 
to prevent or to limit which evil, it is ordered that 
such Russian women as shall attend the University of 



742 WOMEN OF THE OENTURY. 

Zurich, after the first of January, 1874, shall uot be 
admitted, on their return to Russia, to any examination, 
educational establishment, or appointment of any kind, 
under the control of the Government. 

" We think the American reader will have no diffi- 
culty in seeing what the Russian difficulty is in this 
case. These quick-minded girls get their eyes open to 
the enormities of Russian despotism, and their generous 
impulses are stirred in opposition. As to the charges 
of immoraUty, we do not believe a word of them. 
There never was an opponent of slavery or of tyranny 
who did not have to bear such odium ; and ever since 
the days of the early Christians, woman has had her full 
share of the injustice. The real fault in this matter is 
at the other end of the scale. So long as a repressive 
despotism hangs over Russia, all education will develop 
dangerous tendencies ; and it is to the honor of the 
female sex, that it is particularly responsive to the 
generous impulses of culture. Give the freedom of 
America, and the highest cultivation of woman will 
only add to her native refinement, delicacy, and pro- 
priety." To all which the writer adds a reverent 
" Amen ; " hoping great things for and from the women 
of the second century. 



INDEX. 



Abbott, Emma, 591. 

Abbott, Lucy M., 572. 

Adams, Abigail, 46, 73, 215. 

Adams, Hannah, 215. 

Adams, Louisa Catherine, 78. 

Adams, Martha A., 448. 

Agassiz, Elizabeth C, 289. 

Aguilar, Grace, 25. 

Aiken, Sarah I., 616. 

Aitken, Jane, 709. 

Alcott, Louisa M., 247, 737. 

Alcott, May, 310. 

Alford, Joanna, 647. 

Allen, Elizabeth Akers, 253. 

Allen, E. E., 510. 

Allen, Mary, 714. 

Allen, Olive, 714. 

Allen, Phebe, 205. 

AUerton, May, 34. 

Allison, Emma, 646. 

Ames, Mary Clemmer, 688. 

Ames, Sarah F., 320. 

An?eH. Caroline E., 480. 

Anthony, Susan B., 175, 350, 3 

Appleton, Anna E., 243, 268. 

Appleton, Mattie H., 719. 

Arthur, EUa L., 107. 

Aspasia, 25. 

Austin, Harriet N., 691. 

Austin, .Minnie, 537. 

Avery, Dr., 574. 

Babcock, Clara Maria, 490. 
Bache, Sarah, 54, 141. 
Badger, Mrs., 295. 
Bailey, Margaret L., 26.5, 702. 
Baker. Betsey, 647. 
Baker, C. Alice, 733. 
Baker, Sarah J., 537. 
Baldwin, Emma L., 702. 
Ball, M. v., 433. 
Barlow, Arabella Griffith, 204. 
Barkalow, Helena, 667. 
Barker, .Mrs., 204. 
Barnard, Caroline, 635. 
Barnard, Caroline L., 180. 
Barnard, Sarah J., 719. 
Barney, Eliza, 263. 
Bartlett, EUa Elizabeth, 451. 
Bartlett, Jennie E., 306. 
Barton, Clara, 179, 184, 203. 



Barton, Kate, 652. 

Bazin, Hattie, 714. 

Bazin, Tillie, 714. 

Beal, Mary S., 538. 

Beecher, Catherine H., 524. 

Beekman, Cornelia, 142. 

Bennett, Alice, 575. 

Benson, Elizabeth M., 544. 

Benton, Mrs., 343, 455. 

Betts, Abby, 607. 

Betts, Helen M., .572, 573. 

Bickerdyke, "Mother," 204. 

Bingham, Anne, 140. 

Bingham, Henrietta A., 691. 

Bird, Clementine, 710. 

Blackmar, Miss, 205. 

Blackwell, Antoinette Brown, 247, 288, 441; 

Black^vell, Elizabeth, 552, 574. 

Blackwell, Emily, 554, 574. 

Blake, Lillie Uevereux, 377. 

Bland, .M. Cora, 691. 

Blinn, Odelia, 704. 

Blodgett, C. A., 394. 

Bloomer, Amelia, 703. 

Bodley, Rachel L., 560. 

Boise, Misses, 548. 

Bolton, Sarah K., 423. 

Bonney, Sarah E., 282. 

Boon, Emma, 575. 

Booth, Almida, 534 

Booth, Mary L., 686. 

Borg, Selma, 247. 

Botta, Anna Charlotte, 265. 

Bowles, Ada C.,. 342, 451. 

Brackett, Anna C, 538. 

Bradford, Cornelia, 709. 

Bradley, Amy M., 204. 

Bradwell, Myra B., 663, 665, 670. 

Bratton, Martha, 61. 

Brayton, Mary Clark, 418. 

Breckenridge, Margaret Elizabeth, 204. 

Bridges, Fidelia, 299. 

Briggs, Anna E., 714. 

Bristol, Augusta Cooper, 493. 

Bromall, Aima E., 557. 

Bronson, Laura M., 593. 

Brown, Antoinette, 363. 

Brown, Deborah G., 63,5. 

Brown, Olympia, 349, 367, 445. 

Brown, Kuth, 619. 

Browne, Marie A., 247. 



744 



Brownell, Katy, 196. 
Bruce Elizabeth M., 451, 691. 
Buckel, C. A., 572. 
Bullock, Mrs., 647. 
Burleigh, Celia, 490. 
Burnhain, Marv M., .544. 
Burr, Frances Ellen, 691. 
Burt, Lizzie, 669. 
Burt, Mary T., 427. 
Butler, Clarissa, 538, 733. 
Butts, Amy B., 537. 
Butts, Mrs., 688. 

Caldwell, Mira, 618. 

Callanan, Mrs., 342. 

Canfield, S. A. Martha, 205. 

Capen, Bessie T., 514. 

Capen, Mary E., 205. 

Carpenter, Caroline A., 533. 

Cartwright, Ellen M., 596. 

Carver, Jane, .'■)75. 

Gary, Alice, 234. 

Gary, Annie Louise, 591. 

Cary, Phebe, 234. 

Chandler, Elizabeth M., 263. 

Chandler, Lucinda M., 433. 

Channing, Susan Burdick, 529. 

Chapin, Augusta J., 446. 

Chapin, Ella, 668. 

Chapin, Mary E., 549. 

Chapman, Maria Weston, 175. 

Chase, Ann, 57. 

Chase, Elizabeth B., 181. 

Chase, Mary Maria, 261, 283. 

Cheatham, Adelicia, 148. 

Cheney, Ednah D., 247, 340, 489. 

Cheney, Harriet V., 238. 

Chesbro, Frances M. 258. 

Cheves, Charlotte, 308. 

Child, Lydia Maria, 168, 184, 263, 352, 696. 

Chilton, May, 34. 

Churchill, Elizabeth K., 340. 

Clark, Lucia F., .544. 

Clark, .Mary S., 344. 

Clarke, Mrs., 702. 

Clarke, Sarah, 302. 

Clav, Elizabeth, 64. 

Clement, Annie \V., 627. 

Clement, Clara Erskine, 292. 

Clemmer, Mary, 620. 

Cleveland, Emeline Horton, .571. 

Cleveland, Frances Folsom, 109. 

Cleveland, Rose Elizabeth, 109. 

Cleves, Margaret, 575. 

Clifford, Mrs., 737. 

Cobb, Eunice Hale, 448. 

Coffin, Mary Starbuck, 262. 

Coffin, Mrs. C. F., 182. 

Coffin, Narcissa, 433, 437. 

Coggeshall, Elizabeth, 441. 

Colbv, Sarah A., 561. 

Cole," Miriam M., 345. 703. 

Coleman, Mary F., 607. 

Colfax, Harriet R., 20.5. 

Collins, Jennie C, 179. 

Colt, Mrs., 183. 

Comb, Helen, 668. 

Comstock, Elizabeth, 433, 441. 

Comstock, Sarah Davis, 510. 

Conant, Helen C, 247. 



Conant, Helen S., 288. 
Conise, .\nnette, 669. 
Cook, Dr., 572. 
Cook, Maria, 445. 
Cooke, Frances M., 574. 
Coolidge, Addie Ryan, 596. 
Cooper, Ellen, 308. 
Cooper, Susan Fenimore, 239. 
Corbin, Margaret, 63. 
Cornelia, 25. 
Cornell, Sophia S., 539. 
Cory, Florence E., 323. 
Couzins, Adaline, 659. 
Couzins, Phebe W., 659. 
Cowell, S. Emma, 593. 
CoiK, Hannah, 375. 
Coxe, Margaret, 239, 287. 
Cranch, Julia, 247. 
Crandall, Prudence, 175. 
Crane, Elizabeth Watson, 529. 
Creenier, Lucy M., 448, 619. 
Crittenden, Elizabeth, 146. 
Crocker, Lucretia, 540. 
Croly, Mrs. (Jennie June), 687. 
Crouch, Mary, 710. 
Cummings, Maria, 245. 
Currie, Mary, 544. 
Curtis, Harriet F., 226, 696. 
Curtis, Jessie, 299. 
Cushman, Charlotte, 576. 
Cushman, Susan, 578. 
Custis, Eleanor Parke, 144. 
Cutler, H. M. Tracy, 345. 

Dada, Hattie A., 205. 

Dall, Caroline H., 365, 489. 

Damon, Ruth Augusta, 449. 

Danforth, Abbie Ellsworth, 451. 

Darlington, Hannah, 376. 

Darrah, Lydia, 55. 

Darrow, Julia May, 519. 

Davenport, Fanny, 590. 

Davidson, Lucretia .Maria, 263. 

Davidson, Margaret Miller, 263. 

Davis, Clara, 205. 

Davis, Hannah, 613. 

Davis, Marv F., 493. 

Davis, Minnie S., 239. 

Davis, Paulina Wright, 697. 

De Forest, Jane O., 341. 

De Hart, Madana F., 575. 

De Hart, Sarah, 575. 

De Kroyft, S. H., 346. 

Deming, Charlotte, 292. 

Deraorest, Madame, f 11. 

De Norniandie, Elizabeth K., 310. 

DeRyther, Jule, 591. 

Dewey, Mary E., 217 

Deyo, Amanda, 432. 

Dickinson, Anna E., 337, ,591. 

Dickinson, Lida M., 247. 

Diehl, Anna Randall, 593. 

Diniock, Susan T., 555. 

Dinnies, Anna Peyre, 264. 

Divers, Bridget, 194. 

Dix, Dorothea L., 176. 

Dodd, Mary Ann Hammer, 239. 

Dodge, Mary A. (Gail Hamilton), 245. 

Dodge, Mary E., 689. 

Doffgett, Kate N., 306. 



745 



Dolley, Sarah R. Adamson, 567. 
Donelson, Mrs. Emily, 133. 
Donlevy, Alice, 319. 
Doolittle, Antoinette, 432. 
D'Ossoli, Margaret Fuller, 217. 
Douglas, Marv Ann, 308. 
Drake, Lucy R., 621. 
Draper, Margaret, 647. 
Dubois, Mrs., 293. 
Ducoudray, Madame, 647. 
Duniway, A. J., 704, 711. 
Du Pre, Julia, 307. 
Duston, Hannah, 38. 
Dutillet, Madame, 647. 
Dwight, Elizabeth Baker, 507. 

Eames, Elizabeth J., 266. 
Eames, Jane A., 736. 
Eastman, Mary F., 342, 489. 
Eastman, Sarah P., 544. 
Easton, Elizabeth, 529. 
Easton, Rachel, 607. 
Easton, Sarah C, 529. 
Edson, Sarah P.^ 205. 
Elkins, Lydia, 607. 
EUet, Elizabeth F., 224, 264. 
Ellet, Mary, 191. 
Elliott, Anna, 64. 
Elliott, Melcenia, 204. 
Elliott, Sabrina, 64. 
Elliott, Susanna, 64. 
Embury, Emma C, 225. 
Emerson, Frances, 544. 
Endicott, Anna T., 179. 
Entricken, Sarah, 572. 
Estes, Huldah, 423. 
Etheridge, Annie, 192. 
Evans, Augusta J., 245. 

Fales, Almira, 204. 

Farley, Harriet, 225, 696. 

Fanner, Haiuiah, 448, 619. 

Farnum, Mary Allen, 437. 

Farrar, Eliza, 239. 

Ferguson, Elizabeth Graeme, 140. 

Field, Catherine, 143. 

Field, Kate, 590. 

Fillmore, Abigail, 88. 

Fillmore, Mary Abigail, 134. 

Fiske, Catherine, 528. 

Fiske, Fidelia, 513. 

Fitzhugh, Anne, 52. 

Fletcher, Alice C, 534. 

Fogg, Isabella, 205. 

Foley, Margaret, 292, 738. 

Follen, Eliza Lee, 226. 

Folsom, Mariana Thompson, 450. 

Forbes, Arethusa L., 660. 

Forman, Mary Leavenworth, 145. 

Fosdick, Hannah, 607. 

Foss, Louise Woodworth, 582. 

Foster, Abby Kelley, 354. 

Foster, .Fanny, 591. 

Foster, Judith Ellen, 673. 

Fowler, Almira L., 572. 

Fowler, Lvdia F., 287, 559, 602. 

Frank, Emi B., 488. 

Franklin, Anne, 708. 

Franklin, Deborah, 48. 

Franks, Rebecca, 141. 



Freeman, Alice E., 545. 
Fremont, Jessie Benton, 149. 
French, Anna Densmore, 353. 
French, Bella, 704. 
Frietchie, Barbara, 212. 
Fuller, Electa, 720. 
Fuller, Laura, 720. 
Fuller, Margaret, 266, 703. 
Fuller, Sarah E. 319. 

Gage, Frances Dana, 179, 208, 360. 

Gage, Matilda J., 641. 

Gaines, Myra Clarke, 146. 

Gardner, Anna, 17.5, 262, 341. 

Gardner, Avis, 529. 

Gardner, Charlotte M., 537. 

Garfield, Eliza, 639. 

Garfield, Lucretia R., 105. 

Garrison, Helen E., 375. 

Gaston, Esther, 61. 

Geiger, Emily, 60. 

George, Mrs. E. E., 205. 

Gibbes, Marv Ann, 62. 

Gibbons, Abigail Hopper, 205, 355. 

Gibbons, Sarah H., 205. 

Gifford, Susan Ann, 386. 

Gilbert, Linda, 181. 

Gill, Elizabeth Mary, 615. 

Gillett, Fidelia WooUey, 451. 

Gilman, Caroline A., 227, 256, 696. 

Gilpin, Mrs. Henry D., 146. 

Gilson, Helen L., 200. 

Glazier, Sarah, 544. 

Gleason, Dr., 572. 

Glover, Anna, 530. 

Goddard, Marv Katherine, 647, 710. 

Goddard, Sarah, 709. 

Goodell, Lavina, 663. 

Goodrich, Abigail Whittlesey, 702. 

Goodrich, Mrs., 292. 

Gordon, Laura De Force, 344. 

Gore, .Miss, 304. 

Gould, Hannah F., 262. 

Gow, Ellen, 514. 

Graham, Isabella, 162. 

Granbury, Miss, 304. 

Grant, Julia Dent, 97. 

Graves, Mary H., 349, 489. 

Greatorex, Mrs., 296. 

Greble, Mrs. Edwin, 205. 

Greeley, Mary Y. C, 433. 

Green, Betty, 616. 

Green, Frances H., 263. 

Greene, Anne Catherine, 710. 

Greene, Catherine, 139. 

Grew, Mary, 355, 356. 

Griffin, Josephine R., 210. 

Griffing, Josephine S., 373. 

Grimke, Angelina, 175, 345, 355. 

Grimke, Sarah, 145, 345, 355. 

Guilford, Annie, 591. 

Gustin, Ellen G., 488. 

Haddock, Emma, 661. 

Hagar, Sarah J., 210. 

Hagidorn, Marv, 51. 

Hale, Ellen D., 299. 

Hale, Mary W., 258. 

Hale, Sarah Josepha, 227, 702. 

Hall, Anne, 294. 



746 



Hall, Louisa Jane, 257. 

Hall, Lydia S., 668. 

Hall, L. C, .544. 

Hall, Maria M. C, 205. 

Hall, Sarah, 243. 

Hall, Susan E., 205. 

Hallett, Emma V., 247. 

Hallock, Mary, 302. 

Hallowell, R. C, 703. 

Hallowell, Susan B., 544. 

Hamilton, Gail (Mary A. Dodge), 245. 

Hanaford, Phebe A., 242, 258, 349, 427, 433, 

447, 690, 733. 
Hancock, Cornelia, 204. 
Hancock, Dorothy Quincy, 138. 
Hanna, Rebecca, .557. 
Harbert, Li/.zie Boynton, 344. 
Harmon, Amelia, 212. 
Harper, Frances E. W., 346. 
Harris, Mrs., 204. 
Harrison, Anna Symmes, 82. 
Harrison, Caroline Scott, 118. 
Harrison, Margaretta Willetts, 380. 
Harvey, Cordelia A. P., 204. 
Haskell, Parola, 719. 
Hastings, Caroline E., 343. 
Hastings, Mary A., 540. 
Hathaway, Mrs. P. V., 288. 
Hawley, Harriet Foote, 205. 
Hawley, Laura M., 265. 
Hawley, Maria, 704. 
Hawthorne, Mrs., 295. 
Hayes, Lucy W., 122. 
Haynes, Dr., 574. 
Haynes, Lorenza, 450, 719. 
Hentz, Caroline Lee, 229. 
Herrick, Mary Elizabeth, 679. 
Hevrick, Elizabeth, 352. 
Hicks, Margaret, 306. 
Hildreth, Mrs., 295. 
Hill, Frances M., 509. 
Hill, .Mrs., 296. 
Hiscock, Mrs., 702. 
Hohbs, Amelia, 669. 
Hoffman, Sarah, 164. 
Hoffman, Sophia C, 164. 
Hoge, Mrs. A. M., 205. 
Hoiley, Sallie, 175. 
HoUowav, Laura C, 703. 
Holstein. Mrs., 204. 
Holt, Mary, 710. 
Homer, Ella, 279. 
Hooper, Lucy, 267. 
Hopper, Anna M., 633. 
Hopton, Sarah, 64. 
Horr, Sophia B., 544. 
Hortensia, 25. 
Horton, Mary, 540. 
Hosier, Lydia, 607. 
Hosmer, Harriet, 320. 
Hovev, Augusta M., 493. 
Howard, Ada L., 544. 

Howe, Harriet (Mrs. Henry Wilson), 620. 
Howe, Julia Ward, 248, 249, 349, 432, 448, 

489, 690, 737. 
Howe, Roxana, 433. 
Howell, Elizabeth Lloyd, 259. 
Howland, Rachel, 441. 
Howland, Susan, 441. 
Hoyt, Lucy, 618. 



Hubbard, Emma, 668. 
Hubbnrd, Sara A., 696. 
Hulett, Alta Q., 663. 
Humphrey, Sarah W., 540. 
Hunt, Dr., 572. 
Hunt, Harriot K., 556. 
Hunt, Helen (Fiske), 246. 
Hunt, Sarah Augusta, 556. 
Huntington, Susan, 152. 
Hurd, H. A., 544. 
Husband, Mary Morris, 204. 
Hussey, Nancy, 607. 
Hutchinson, .\bby, 591. 
Hutchinson, Elizabeth, 591. 
Hutchinson, Elizabeth Chase, 363. 
Hutchinson, Nellie McKay, 691. 
Hutchinson, Viola, 591. 

Inman, .\nna, 574. 
Israel, Hannah, 59. 

Jackson, Mercy B., 560. 

Jackson, Rachel, 80. 

Jacobs, Sarah S., 268. 

James, Annie P., 510. 

James, Caroline A., 450. 

Jarauld, Charlotte, 713. 

Jay, Sarah Livingstone, 137. 

Jefferson, Martha, 75. 

Jenkins, Helen P., 341. 

Jenkins, Lydia A., 445, 563. 

Jewell, Catherine Underwood, 557. 

Johnson, Agnes, 575. 

Johnson, Eliza Mc.\rdle, 93. 

Johnson, Lucie F., 205, 448. 

Johnson, Lucy, 653. 

Johnson, Mary C, 420. 

Johnson, Mrs., 702. 

Johnson, Sarah R., 204. 

Jones, Sybil, 438. 

Joy, Charlotte Austin, 371. 

Judson, Anna H., 502. 

Judson, Emily Chubbuck, 219, 266, .505. 

Judson, Sarah B., 503. 

June, Jennie (.Mrs. Croly), 687. 

Keller, Elizabeth C, 572, 573. 
Kellogg, Clara Louise, 591, 592. 
Kenworthy, Ann, 441. 
Kerr, Annie E., 696. 
Kimball, Harriet .McEwen, 269. 
Kimher, Abby, 356. 
King, Mary Alsop, 141. 
King, Siisan, 611. 
Kinssbnrv, Elizabeth A., 343. 
Kirkland,' Caroline M., 229, 702. 
Kuisht, Abbie R., 529. 
Knight, Mary, 63. 
Knight, Miss, 652. 
Knox, Mrs., 138. 
KoUock, Florenc_e Ellen, 451. 
Kugler, .\iiiia, 575. 

Lamb, Martha J., 730. 
Lander, Louisa, 'SOI. 
Lane, .\manda, 428. 
Lane, Cohimbia, 609. 
Lane, Harriet, 135. 
Langston, Dicey, 57. 
Larcom, Lucy, 246, 254. 



747 



Lathbury, Miss, 738. 

Lazarus, Emma, 269. 

Lea, Anna M., 299. 

Leaveinvortli, Mary, 145. 

Le Clerc, Prudy, 450. 

Ledyard, Mrs. John, 155. 

Ledyard, Mary, 155. 

Lee, Hannah F., 229. 

Lee, Mary E., 244. 

Lee, Mary W., 205. 

Lees, Harriet, 696. 

Legare, Mary Suinton, 295. 

Leiter, FannV W., 399. 

Leslie, Ann, 393. 

Leslie, Eliza, 230. 

Le Vert, Octavia, 147. 

Lewis, Edmonia, 316. 

Lewis, Grace Anna, 279. 

Lewis, Ida, 1156. 

Lewis, Lizzie T., 635. 

Lewis, Sarah Anna, 266. 

Lincoln, Mary Todd, 91. 

Lippincott, Sarah Jane, 223. 

Livermore, Mary A., 205, 325,452, 529, 

Livevmore, Sarah White, 256. 

Lockwood, B. A., 663, 670. 

Logan, Olive, 590. 

Longley, Margaret V., 703. 

Longshore, Hannah E., 559. 

Longstreet, Miss, 696. 

Lord, Lucy T., 513. 

Loud, Huldah B., 344. 

Lowe, Martha Perry, 259. 

Lowell, Josephine Shaw, 667. 

Lowrie, Mrs., 475. 

Lozier, Clemence J., 558. 

Lozier, C. S., 574. 

Lunt, Harriet M., 489. 

Lupton, Mrs., 292. 

Lyman, Mrs. Walter, 343, 526. 

Lyon, Mary, 519. 

MacDowell, Annie A. E., 702. 
Macintosh, Sarah, 292. 
Mackway, E., 704. 
Macomber, Eleanor, 511. 
Macv, Anne M., 262. 
Macy, Harriet, 607. 
Macy, Mary, 437. 
Madison, Dolly P., 75. 
Maertz, Louisa, 205. 
Mansfield, B. A., 662. 
Martin, Elizabeth, 48. 
Martin, Grace, 49. 
Martin, Rachael, 49. 
Mason, Caroline A., 255, 448. 
Mason, Emily, 149. 
Mason, Helen M., 513. 
Matthews, Louisa, 718. 
May, Abby W., 205. 
-May, Berenice, 529. 
May, Caroline, 304. 
May, Miss, 206, 295. 
Mayo, Sarah Edgarton, 268. 
McCabe, Harriet Calista, 402. 
McCuUoch, Fanny J., 718. 
McEwen, Hettie M., 212. 
Mcintosh, Maria I., 233. 
McKay, Charlotte E., 205. 
Mc.Meens, Anna C, 205. 



McNall, B. A., 671. 

Meigs, Mary Noel, 267. 

Mellen, Mary B., 309. 

Merrill, Mrs. John, 56. 

Meyer, Emily L., 247. 

Meyers, Jane V., 559. 

Miles, Anne, 257. 

Miles, Ellen E., 240, 258, 448, 538, 593, 

Miles, Lizzie, 538. 

Miles, M. Jennie, 205, 538. 

Miles, Sarah E., 257. 

Miller, Augusta A., 714. 

Miller, Emily Huntingdon, 704. 

Miller, Harriet Granger, 714. 

Millett, Deborah D., 625. 

Mitchell, Alice, .529. 

Mitchell, Ellen E., 205. 

Mitchell, .Maggie, .590. 

Mitchell. Maria, 262, 272, 346, 718, 

Mitchell, Martha, 529. 

Mix, Josephine B., 570. 

Moffinburv, Julia, 669. 

.Alollov, E'mma, 427, 693, 711. 

Monroe, Anna, .574. 

Monroe, Eliza, 77. 

Moody, Eliza G., 619. 

Moore, Kate, 155. 

More, Hannah, 613. 

Morell, Imogene Robinson, 308, 

Morgan, Middle, 686. 

Morris, Miss., 305. 

Morse, Rebecca A., 306. 

Morton, Helen, 555. 

Morton, Dr., 574. 

.Mott, Lucretia, 170, 184, 356, 357, 437. 

Motte, Rebecca, 57, 602. 

Mo)ilton, Louise Chandler, 246. 

Munroe, Nancv T., 448. 

Munsell, Jane R., 205. 

Murray, Mary, 292. 

Neal, Alice B., 233. 
Neale, Elizabeth, 356. 
Neff, Mary, 38. 
Nelson, Jennie, 544. 
Newell, Harriet, 505. 
Newman, E. E., 474. 
Newton, Charlotte L., 610. 
Nicholas, 1. R., 611. 
Nichols, C. I. H., 366. 
Nichols, Rebecca S., 269. 
Nivison, Miss, 572. 

Oakley, Juliana, 304. 
O'Daniels, A. M., 463. 
O'Hara, Miss, 292. 
Oliver. Sophia Helen, 264. 
Olmsted, Cornelia, 718. 
Orvis, Mrs., 295. 
Osgood, Frances Sargent, 267. 
Osgood, Kate Putnam, 269. 
Otis, Elizabeth Bordnian, 145. 
Owen, Maria L., 290, 529. 

Paddock, Eunice, 607. 
Page, Elizabeth, 635. 
Palmer, Eliza, 736. 
Palmer, Henrietta Lee, 847, 
Palmer, Lydia P., 247. 
Palmer, Phebe, 618. 



748 



Panish, Lydia G., 304. 

Parsons, Emily E., 204. 

Parton, Sarah Payson, 245. 

Patterson, Jane C, 452. 

Patterson, Martha, 135. 

Patton, Abby Hutchinson, 362. 

Payne, Alice Huntley, 696. 

Payne, Jane, 572. 

Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer, 240, 530. 

Peake, .Mary S., 208. 

Peale, Anna C, 293. 

Peale, Rosalba, 293. 

Peale, Sarah M., 293. 

Peasley, Mrs.,610. 

Peckham, Lily, 345. 

Pennock, Deborah, 377. 

Perkins, Sarah M. C, 342, 452. 

Perry, Katherine White, 537. 

Perry, Mary F., 663. 

Pettes, Mary Dwight, 204. 

rhelps, , 730. 

Phelps, Almira H. Lincoln, 286, 528. 

Phelps, Aurora, 183. 

Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, 244, 343. 

Phelps, Mrs. I. S., 205. 

Phillips, Anne Greene, 356. 

Phillips, Phebe, 175. 

Pierce, Jane, 90. 

Pierson, Lydia Jane, 266. 

Pitcher, Moll, 53. 

Planteau, Madam, 292. 

Pocahontas, 32. 

Polk, Sarah, 86. 

Porter, Eliza C, 204. 

Post, Cornelia S., 301. 

Post, Partlienia S., 301. 

Potter, Helen, 594. 

Powell, Elizabeth M., 476. 

Powers, Lucy Gaylord, 209. 

Powers, Martha E., 593. 

Preston, Ann, 558, 559. 

Prince, Joanna, 635. 

Prior, Margaret, 153. 

Pugh, Esther, 427. 

Pugh, Sarah, 175, 356. 

Putnam, Caroline, 175. 

Putnam, Mary C, 572. 

Quinby, Adeline Cordelia, 182. 

Rand, Susan A., 607. 

Randall, Gertrude E., 544. 

Randolph, Martha Jefferson, 132. 

Ransom, Sarah, 320. 

Ray, Charlotte E., 662, 669. 

Ray, Sophia A., 607. 

Raymond, Sarah E., 548. 

Ream, Vinnie, 320. 

Redfield, Ann Maria, 285. 

Redmond, Mary, 58. 

Reed, Catherine S., 423. 

Reed, Esther, 55. 

Remington, Mrs. Mather, 612. 

Rich, S. Louisa, 718. 

Richardson, Abby Sage, 733. 

Ricker, M. M., 673. 

Ricketts, Fanny L., 205. 

Ridgeway, Ann, 147. 

Ritchie, Anna Cora, Mowatt, 267. 



Roberts, Fannie, 476, 668. 
Robinson, Hannah M., 263. 
Robinson, Harriet H., 612. 
Robinson, Mrs., 614. 
Rockwood, Eleanor D., 702. 
Rodgers, Augusta M., 652. 
Rodman, Charity, 166. 
Rogers, Mary H., 441. 
Rose, Ernestine L., 175. 
Ross, Anna Maria, 204. 
Ross, Laura E., 572. 
Rounds, Christiana, 538. 
Rouse, Mrs. Benjamin, 417. 
Rudd, Susan, 143. 
Ruggles, Emily, 608. 
Ruggles, .Mrs., 304. 
Rule, Elizabeth E., 718. 
RuUan, Maria, 210. 
Runkle, Mrs., 696. 
Russell, Mrs. E. J., 205. 
Russell, Mary, 529. 
Russell, Penelope, 711. 
Rutherford, Frances A., 669. 

Safford, Mary J., 204. 
Samson, Deborah, 50. 
Sarrick, Mrs., 647. 
Sartain, Emilv, 312. 
Sawyer, A. R^, 320. 
Sawyer, Caroline M., 265. 
Sawyer, Lucy, 644. 
Schaumberj, Emilie, 147. 
Schuvler, Catherine, 141. 
Scofield, Lydia A., 432. 
ScoK, Julia H., 261. 
Seaver, Nancy, B., 530. 
Sedgnick, Catherine M., 216. 
Seton, Eliza A., 184. 
Severance, Caroline, M., 359. 
SewaU, Dr., 574. 
Sewall, Lucy E., 55.5. 
Seymour, Almira, 257, 448. 
Shattuck, Mrs. Job, 56. 
Shaw, .\nnette, 451. 
Sheads, Carrie, 212. 
Sheaffe, Helen, 138. 
Sheaffe, Margaret, 138. 
Sheaffe, Susannah, 138. 
Shelton, Mrs., 615. 
Sherwood, Emily Lee, 691. 
Shubrick, Mrs. Richard, 62. 
Shuck, Henrietta, 512. 
Sigourney, Lydia H., 250. 
Slocum, Helen M., 432. 
Slocum, Lillie, 615. 
Small, Jerusha R., 205. 
Smalley, Ann, 615. 
Smallwood, Hannah T., 279. 
Smiley, Sarah, 441. 
Smith, Abby, 372. 
Smith, Elizabeth Oakes, 264. 
Smith, Erminnie A., 289. 
Smith, Eveline Sherman, 266. 
Smith, Fanny I., 288. 
Smith, Frances A., 301. 
Smith Julia, 372. 
Smith, Margaret Harrison, 244. 
Smith, Sarah E., 284. 
Smith, Sarah Lanman, .508. 
Smith, Sarah Louise P.,264. 



749 



Smith, Sarah R., 538. 

Smith, Sophia, 183, MO. 

Snow, Georgie, 667. 

Spear, Sarah, 205. 

Spencer, Lily Martin, 304. 

Spencer, Mrs. B. H., 205. 

Spindler, Marv B., 243. 

Spofford, Harriet Elizabeth Prescott, 246. 

Soule, Caroline A., 240, 350, 427, 448, 493, 

680. 
Southwick, Abby, 356. 
Southworth, Emma D. E. N., 237. 
Stannard, Martha Pierce, 149. 
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 175, 350, 368, 690. 
Starbuck, Elizabeth, 262. 
Starbuck, Katherine, 634. 
Starbuck, Lucy, 529. 
Starr, Eliza Allen, 696. 
Stearns, Sarah Burgess, .557. 
Stebbins, Catherine, A. F., 372. 
Stebbins, Emma, 308. 
Steele, Elizabeth, 58. 
Steinbach, Sabina von, 291. 
Stephens, Ann S., 237. 
Stetson, Martha A., 345. 
Stevens, Mary E., 668. 
Stevenson, Sarah Hackett, 383, 563. 
Stockton, Annis, 141. 
Stockton, Louise, 690. 
Stoddard, Dora V., 346. 
Stoddard, Elizabeth, 269. 
Stoddard, Harriet B., 514. 
Stone, Lucinda H., 737. 
Stone, Lucy, 350, 363, 690. 
Storey, Widow, 33. 
Stork, Helen, 544. 
Stover, Mary, 136. 

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 175, 221, 269, 737. 
Strickland, S. E., 346. 
Stuart, Jane, 295. 
Stiiart, Sarah M., 373. 
Sullivan, Margaret B., 696. 
Sully, Jane, 293." 
Swain, Louisa A., 433. 
Swain, Mary P., 607. 
Swain, Miss, 285. 
Swain, Sarah, 607. 
Swisshelm, Jane G., 703. 

Talbot, Caroline, 433, 441. 
Talley, Susan Archer, 269. 
Taylor, Elizabeth, 711. 
Taylor, Esther W., 563. 
Taylor, Lvdia, 711. 
Taylor, Mara^aret, 88. 
Taylor, Nellie Maria, 204. 
Terrv, Rose, 266. 
Thaxter, Celia, 260. 
Thomas, Mrs. E., 205. 
Thomas, Mary F., 5.59. 
Thomas, M. Louise, 724. 
Thompson, Eliza Jane, 412. 
Tliompson, Esther E., 544. 
Thompson, Mary H., 674. 
Thompson, Mrs. E. J., 380. 
Thompson, Sarah, 139. 
Thrale, Mrs., 647. 
Thursby, Miss, 591. 
Timothee Elizabeth, 710. 
Todd, Elizabeth C, 719. 



Tomlin, Mary, 704. 
Tompkins, Amelia, 572. 
Tompkins, Cornelia M., 205. 
Torrens, Eliza, 292. 
Torrens, Rosalba, 292. 
Townsend, Rachel, 432, 441. 
Treat, Mary, 288. 
TuUy, Jane, 292. 
Tupper, Eliza, 450,611. 
Tupper, Ellen S., 722. 
Turchin, Madame, 192. 
Turner, Eliza, 714. 
Turner, Emily, 714. 
Tuthill, Cornelia, 243. 
Tuthill, Louisa C, 238. 
Tyler, Adeline, 204. 
Tyler, Julia Gardiner, 85. 
Tyler, Letitia Christian, 85, 
Tyng, Anita E, 572. 

Underbill, Elizabeth H., 432. 

Van Alstine, Nancy, 60. 

Van Buren, Angelica, 134. 

Van Buren, Hannah, 82. 

Vance, Miss, 205. 

Van Cott, Maggie N., 344, 480. 

Vandenhoff, Mrs., George, 593. 

Vandernplasse, Mrs., 647. 

Van Lennep, Mary Elizabeth, 512. 

Van Ness, Cornelia, 144. 

Van Ness, Marcia, 144. 

Very, Lydia Louisa Ann, 256. 

Vrooman, Angelica, 51. 

Waddell, Mrs. Coventry, 147. 

Wade, Jennie, 211. 

Walker, Miss, 544. 

Wallis, Mary D., 737. 

Ward, Sallie, 143. 

Ware, Catherine A., 263. 

Warner, .\nna, 50. 

Warner for Wetherell), Elizabeth, 245. 

Warner, Harriet E., 315. 

Warren, Mercy, 38, 137. 

Washburn, Agnes Bartram, 537. 

Washington, Jane, 64. 

Washington, Martha, 66. 

Washington, Mary, 41. 

Watson, Jennie, 289. 

Wattle, Mary, 668. 

Way, Amanda M., 475. 

Weaver, Anna K., 611. 

Webber, Mary T., 254. 

Webster, Mary C, 452. 

Webster, Dr., 574. 

Welby, Amelia B., 269. 

Welch, Nancy, 635. 

Wellington, Margaret, 713. 

Wells, Ann Maria, 261. 

Wells, Charlotte Fowler, 559, 612, 702. 

Wells, Mrs. Shepard, 205. 

West, Maria A., 738. 

West, Mary Allen, 547. 

Weston, Mary, 307. 

Wetherell, E. C, 205. 

Wheatley, Phillis, 37. 

White, Armenia, 457. 

W^hite, Callie, 714. 

White, Caroline Earle, 180. 



(50 



W'liite, Emily, 572. 
White, Sallie Joy, 594, 691. 
Whiting, Martha, 529. 
Whitman, Bathsheba, 529. 
Whitney, Adeline D. T., 245, 737. 
Whitney, Anna, 318. 
Whitney, E. ¥., 618. 
Whitney Maria, 540. 
Whittier, Abigail H., 626. 
Whittier, Elizabeth H., 626. 
Whittredge, E. P., 635. 
Wilber, Mrs., 722. 
Wilbour, Charlotte B., 371. 
Wilkes, Eliza Tupper, 450. 
Willard, Emma, 286, 524, 730. 
Willard, Frances E., 350, 387. 
Willard, Sarah, 544. 
Williams, Pamela, 143. 
Williams, Sarah R. L., 697. 
Willing, Jennie Fowler, 460. 
Wilson, Mary, 724. 
Wilson, Mrs. Charles, 142. 
Wilson, Mrs. Robert, 62. 
Wilson, Mrs., 62, 293. 
Wilson, Mrs., 142, 647. 
Winship, C. A., 634. 
Winslow, Emily, 356. 
Winterburn, Charlotte V., 592. 



Winthrop, Elizabeth Temple, 137. 
Winthrop, Hannah, 138. 
Withers, The Misses, 308. 
Wittenraeyer, Annie, 204, 344, 394 
Woodbridge, .Mary Ann, 386. 
Woodman, Mrs., 304. 
Woodward, Ann .^ubertine, 600. 
Woolsey, The Misses, 204. 
Woolson, Abba Goold, 245, 343. 
Wooster, Mary, 139. 
Worcester, Catherine, 544. 
Woruieley, Katherine P., 204. 
Wormly, Mrs., 315. 
Wortliington, Jane T., 266. 
Wright, Mrs. David, 56. 
Wright, Margaret Coffin, 174. 
Wright, Rebecca, 615. 
Wright, Susanna, 605. 

Yale, Margaret Perry, 263. 
York, Sarah Emily, 613. 
Yorke, Miss, 134. 
Young, Carrie, 703. 

Zakrzewska, Marie, 554, 575. 
Zane, Elizabeth, 61. 
Zerger, Mrs., 709. 



1 



